Teaching the Art of Modeling in Engineering Using a ComputerAided, Phenomena-Based Modeling Language

9355832将开发一个计算机辅助建模环境，并将其纳入化学工程本科核心课程的教育范围。通过这种环境，学生学习如何对物理和化学过程行为建模所需的一组结构化步骤与交互式建模语言相协调，该语言旨在向学生提供关于其模型的一致性、完整性和合理性的即时反馈。建模语言协调描述物理和化学现象的术语，学生声明这些术语对模型的内容很重要，并组成形成结果模型的表达式的数学关系。然后使用数值算法通过交互模拟产生数学模型的静态或/和动态解，从而允许学生熟悉所建模的过程的行为，以及将其与真实世界系统的预期行为进行比较。与课程讲师合作，开发一种结构化的方法来指导学生完成通常曲折的建模过程。方法是使学生在以下方面有意识和实践：(I)使模型的需求合理化，(Ii)在问题的背景下为模型设定目标，(Iii)感知因果关系，(Iv)阐明过程的物理，(V)陈述现象的表示，(Vi)观察所建立的模型的行为特征，以及(Vii)利用这些特征来解决给定的问题。这种结构化的指导应与建模语言的使用相协调，并整合到本科化学工程核心课程的范围内，使学生的建模任务嵌入到需要解决的问题中，从而使问题的背景和目标更加明确。拟议工作的重要组成部分包括开发用于建模语言的各个建模项目，以及重新设计和翻译用于个人计算机的建模语言的原型版本。预计拟议项目的完成将对本科生的教育产生重大影响，因为：(A)学生将可以自由地进行实验，从而从他们的错误的即时反馈中学习；(B)通过对不寻常的工程问题的背景解决，将加强对“基础现象”的理解。***

9355832 Foss A computer-aided modeling environment is to be developed and integrated into the educational scope of the core undergraduate chemical engineering curriculum. Through this environment, a structured set of steps, needed by students learning how to model physical and chemical process behavior, is coordinated with an interactive modeling language that is designed to provide instantaneous feedback to the students on the consistency, completeness, and reasonableness of their model. The modeling language coordinates the terms describing the physical and chemical phenomena, declared by the student as important to the content of the model, and composes the mathematical relationships that form the expression of the resulting model. Numerical algorithms are then employed to produce through interactive simulation the static or/and dynamic solution of the mathematical model, and thus allow students to familiarize themselves with the behavior of the modeled process, as well as compare it to the expected behavior of the real-world system. A structured approach to guiding the student through the often torturous path of modeling is to be developed in collaboration with the course instructors. The approach is to bring to the students an awareness and practice in (i) rationalizing the need for a model, (ii) setting objectives for the model within a problem's context, (iii) perceiving the cause-effect relationships, (iv) articulating the physics of the process, (v) stating representations of the phenomena, (vi) observing the behavioral characteristics of the model built, and (vii) using these characteristics for the resolution of the given problem. Such structured guidance is to be coordinated with the use of the modeling language and integrated within the scope of undergraduate core chemical engineering courses in such a way that the modeling task for the student is embedded within a problem needing solution, so that the problem's context and objectives are ma de clear. Significant components of the proposed work involve developing the individual modeling projects for use in the modeling language and redesign and translation of a prototype version of the modeling language for use on personal computers. It is expected that the completion of the proposed project will have a significant impact on the undergraduates' education since, (a) the student will be free to experiment and thus learn from immediate feedback of their errors, and (b) the understanding of the "foundation phenomena" will be reenforced through the contextual solution of non-trivial engineering problems. ***