Student-led Inquiry Learning Ability Training - Taking Distillation Experiment as An Example

Inquiry-based study can enhance long term retention and improve application and synthesis of knowledge. In this research, we provide a student-driven, inquiry-based teaching model that trains undergraduate as researcher, who can raise questions, design and perform hypothesis-driven experiments, analyze data, and discuss results. Before students design their research projects, they should know well and answer a series of questions related to experiment principle, condition and error control, data detection, and processing, which guide them to familiarize with project principles, operations, and data processing. Continuous distillation is an ideal choice for the training in an undergraduate lab due to its synthesizing the fluid flow, heat transfer, and mass transfer. Students actively participate in the project, because their doubts can be removed through designing and implementing experiments, such as: How to evaluate the separation capacity of the distillation operation? How to implement the experiment and get the component concentration in a simple way? How to evaluate the separation capacity of the packing column? Students use their acquired research skills to design, execute, and analyze experiments independently. While, the instructors only make some adjustments to ensure that the experimenter completes the design goal within the limited experimental time. Results show that the distillation experiment builds an open, inquiry-based platform for students, which significantly enhances the ability to apply and integrate knowledge. The scientific research ability and teamwork awareness have also been nurtured.