Development of engineering skills in students of biotechnology: Innovation project “From laboratory to industry”

Professors of Chemical Engineering often find that students are discouraged by the highly technical nature of the subject, have a poor understanding of how the subject relates to their field and lack the basic engineering skills and competences. This purpose of this paper is to report on a teaching innovation experience in the course in Biochemical Engineering, part of the Degree in Biotechnology at the Universidad Francisco de Vitoria (Madrid, Spain). The aim of the innovation project was to motivate students and overcome the difficulties posed by the course. To this end, a series of practical seminars were designed with individual and group learning activities, for the acquisition of engineering competences, developing higher-order thinking skills and transversal competences. The evaluation of the project was based on the learning-teaching experience of professors, the academic performance of students and student surveys at the end of the course. All indicators showed that the new methodology had a positive impact both on the attitudes of students and on learning outcomes. Furthermore, students had a more precise and positive vision of the interrelation between Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology in general, favourably influencing their learning in other courses within the degree program.