’It’s no longer one strike is out for students’

A student takes one of the digital interim tests. Photo: Bart van Overbeeke The pass rate at Chemical Engineering & Chemistry shoots from 30% to over 70% with digital interim testing. How do you get students to nearly breeze through a course with a high failure rate? By offering the material in parts via video lectures and pencasts and by testing that knowledge digitally with interim tests that students can schedule themselves when they are ready. Thanks to the BOOST program for digital education innovations, Director of Education John van der Schaaf of Chemical Engineering & Chemistry was able to redevelop a second-year bachelor's course. "This approach gives students confidence and motivation." The eyes of John van der Schaaf, Director of Education at the Department of Chemical Engineering & Chemistry, light up as he recounts the reaction that he received from a student at the end of his Basic Chemical Reactor Engineering course: "She said, 'This is the first time I've taken a course and finished it with the feeling that I really understand it. And I'm in the fourth quartile of the second year.'" That was a compliment but, at the same time, a worrying comment for me as a director of education." "Many students prepare for exams through cramming and repetition, but that doesn't mean that they really get it. Sometimes, they memorize solutions to standard questions without a real understanding.