Creative Problem Solving.

This paper reports on the experience of third year Chemical Engineering students at the University of Canterbury who have undertaken a lecture course on problem solving techniques supplemented with interactive computer instruction - Strategies for Creative Problem Solving. Problem solving strategies were taught as an integral part of engineering design. In addition to lectures, students worked together in pairs to complete the assigned six computer modules as part of their assessment which contributed 10% towards their course work. Performance for each module was measured by an in-built code. Student opinion of this alternative assessment method and issues related to interactive computer learning were evaluated by questionnaire. 79% of the students who responded to the questionnaire found the computer modules useful.