Flipped Classroom Design of a Chemistry Subject in a New Engineering Degree

For the past 7 years, the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) has been offering a Bachelor's Degree in Industrial Technologies and Economic Analysis, entirely taught in English. One of its subjects is Chemistry. This subject was designed around the process of student learning, following the results of the last meeting of the European Higher Education Area in Rome (November 2020). The goal of the design was to comply with the regulatory requirements and incorporate the learning outcomes that were already defined in other engineering areas, as well as to facilitate the learning of students who had not taken chemistry in high school (between 20 and 40% of the total). The flipped classroom methodology was used to this end. In this regard, different materials such as videos with embedded questions and tests were created to promote the students' self-learning. In addition, tuition in new skills was provided, like cooperative work methodologies or criteria to prepare successful summaries. Every week, the students have to complete online homework (10% of the subject's grade), committing themselves to continuous work. This method has been put into practice during several academic courses (including one in semi-confinement). After each course, the students have to assess both the methodology and the material. Comments on improvement opportunities have been gathered and implemented in the subject. In all cases, they have highlighted the fact that continuous work and immediate feedback are two of the aspects that have helped them the most in their learning process. This paper presents the result on the evolution in a non-conventional field, such as industrial engineering.