Creating a Welcoming and Engaging Environment in an Entirely Online Biomedical Engineering Course
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Bucholz E
PROVIDER: S-EPMC7497222 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Sep
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Similar Datasets
Project description:Team projects and in-class interactions are the hallmark of a freshmen introductory course in biomedical engineering (BME). Our challenge was to continue team activities, mentoring, and the semester-long design project in a virtual environment after in-person classes ended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper highlights some of the adaptations required to continue a large (n?=?124) team-based course with students located throughout the world. Breaking up planned in-class activities into small individual assignments followed by team meetings gave groups a starting point for their discussions. Mentoring panels with upperclassmen were actually enhanced through the inclusion of alumni in a virtual environment. The end-of-semester anonymous survey results indicate that 81% of the freshmen agreed or strongly agreed that the course objectives were met, and 75% believed that the team assignments were useful learning experiences. In spite of the sudden shift to online learning, we were able to continue with both short-term and semester-long team activities. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s43683-020-00005-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
| S-EPMC7430930 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Options for incarcerated individuals to participate in higher education in prison programs (HEPPs) have expanded in recent years to include courses in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, however these students remain an underserved population in the United States. Thus, there are opportunities to expand the available offerings, increase the diversity of coursework available by introducing subjects such as biomedical engineering (BME), and include cocurricular and extracurricular activities widely considered critical components of undergraduate training including research experiences. As such, a year-long program was developed to introduce students pursuing a bachelor's degree in an HEPP through an R1 institution to research principles in BME. This course introduced students to disciplines within BME, offered opportunities to gain research experience as knowledge-creators, and supported engagement with a scientific learning community. Using a student-centered approach, the course was designed to incorporate activities for reflection, goal setting, and dialogue among participants and sought to leverage students' funds of knowledge and areas of personal scientific interest. This course represents a transferable model for offering BME courses and research-centered opportunities to students enrolled in other HEPPs and an opportunity to promote equity and access in higher education.Supplementary informationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s43683-022-00071-6.
| S-EPMC9244394 | biostudies-literature
Project description:By early spring 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic caused mandatory campus closures of academic institutions nationwide, prompting the rapid transition to online instruction. While lectures and exams were more straightforwardly administered online using video-chatting software, many hands-on laboratory-based courses were forced to develop creative solutions. In response to online instructional requirements, instructors at the University of California Irvine developed an online electroencephalography (EEG) laboratory to simulate the laboratory experiment for students unable to perform the experiment on campus. The laboratory experiment was performed and video recorded by the instructional team under three different scenarios to provide students with multiple data sets acquired under various experimental conditions often enacted by students. Students were required to complete a pre-lab quiz, analyze the acquired EEG data offline, complete a post-lab quiz, and submit their laboratory report to communicate their findings prior to final exams. Student performances compared to prior student performances, and qualitative survey responses, were examined to assess the effectiveness of and response to the online laboratory format. Based on student feedback and lab report grades, the majority of students responded positively and demonstrated an understanding of the EEG experiment’s learning outcomes. In summary, the online EEG laboratory enabled students to achieve the main learning objectives and become familiar with the laboratory experiment, indicating its success as an alternative laboratory experiment. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s43683-020-00034-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
| S-EPMC7567418 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundIn chronic disease management, patients are increasingly called upon to undertake a new role as lay tutors within self-management training programmes. The internet constitutes an increasingly significant healthcare setting and a key arena for self-management support and communication. This study evaluates how a new quasi-professional health workforce - volunteer tutors - engage, guide and attempt to manage people with long-term conditions in the ways of 'good' self-management within the context of an online self-management course.MethodsA qualitative analysis of postings to the discussion centre of 11 online classes (purposively selected from 27) run as part of the Expert Patients Programme. Facilitators (term for tutors online) and participants posted questions, comments and solutions related to self-management of long-term conditions; these were subjected to a textual and discursive analysis to explore: a) how facilitators, through the internet, engaged participants in issues related to self-management; b) how participants responded to and interacted with facilitators.ResultsEmergent themes included: techniques and mechanisms used to engage people with self-management; the process facilitators followed - 'sharing', 'modelling' and 'confirming'; and the emergence of a policing role regarding online disclosure. Whilst exchanging medical advice was discouraged, facilitators often professed to understand and give advice on psychological aspects of behaviour.ConclusionThe study gave an insight into the roles tutors adopt - one being their ability to 'police' subjective management of long-term conditions and another being to attempt to enhance the psychological capabilities of participants.
| S-EPMC2699343 | biostudies-literature
Project description:This spring, instructors moved their courses online in an emergency fashion as campuses were closed due to the pandemic. As colleges prepare for the next academic year, there is a need to provide flexible instruction that is more intentional for quality online learning. We taught two undergraduate courses online for the first time this spring and surveyed our students' reactions to the course experiences. From our experiences and student feedback, we identified design elements and activities that were beneficial in promoting student engagement, sense of connectivity, and learning. We describe four qualities for a successful transition to online learning: (a) big questions and core concepts; (b) peer groups including reflective writing; (c) outreach to broader scientific community; and (d) instructor's social presence in the class. Our experience gives us confidence that courses can be redesigned for online without compromising rigor or essential learning goals.
| S-EPMC7679538 | biostudies-literature
Project description:In order to provide undergraduate students with a full, rich online learning experience we adapted pre-existing online content including graduate courses from Johns Hopkins University Engineering for Professionals (JHU EP) program. These online courses were designed using published methodologies and held to a high level of rigor of a Masters-level curriculum. Adapting pre-existing online course material enabled us to more rapidly adapt to the COVID-19 shutdown of in-person education. We adapted content to meet the majority of lab-based learning objectives rather than generating self-recorded lecture material and allowing us to focus faculty time on addressing student needs. Here we discuss benefits, challenges, and methods for replicating these courses, and lessons to be applied in future offerings from this experience.
| S-EPMC7781414 | biostudies-literature
Project description:ObjectiveThere is a need to create a standard interactive anatomy lecture that can engage students in their learning process. This study investigated the impact of a new lecturing guideline, the Cognitive Load Theory-based Lecture Model (CLT-bLM), on students' cognitive engagement and motivation.MethodsA randomised controlled trial involving 197 participants from three institutions was conducted. The control group attended a freestyle lecture on the gross anatomy of the heart, delivered by a qualified anatomist from each institution. The intervention group attended a CLT-bLM-based lecture on a similar topic, delivered by the same lecturer, three weeks thereafter. The lecturers had attended a CLT-bLM workshop that allowed them to prepare for the CLT-bLM-based lecture over the course of three weeks. The students' ratings on their cognitive engagement and internal motivation were evaluated immediately after the lecture using a validated Learners' Engagement and Motivation Questionnaire. The differences between variables were analysed and the results were triangulated with the focus group discussion findings that explored students' experience while attending the lecture.ResultsThe intervention group has a significantly higher level of cognitive engagement than the control group; however, no significant difference in internal motivation score was found. In addition, the intervention group reported having a good learning experience from the lectures.ConclusionThe guideline successfully stimulated students' cognitive engagement and learning experience, which indicates a successful stimulation of students' germane resources. Stimulation of these cognitive resources is essential for successful cognitive processing, especially when learning a difficult subject such as anatomy.
| S-EPMC6695024 | biostudies-literature
Project description:There are increasing calls for the use of research-based teaching strategies to improve engagement and learning in engineering. In this innovation paper, we detail the application of research-based teaching strategies in a computer programming focused biomedical engineering module. This four-week, one-credit undergraduate biomedical engineering (BME) programming-based image processing module consisted of a blend of lectures, active learning exercises, guided labs, and a final project. Students completed surveys and generated concept maps at three time points in the module (pre, mid, and post) to document the impact of integrating research-based teaching strategies. Students demonstrated a significant (p < 0.05) increase in conceptual knowledge, confidence with material, and belief in the usefulness of material from the beginning to end of the module. Students also had high (> 4 out of 5) perceptions of gains in knowledge and attitudes toward instructor support. Overall, the novel design utilized multiple research-based pedagogies and increased students’ conceptual knowledge, self-efficacy, and perceived usefulness of material. The proposed design is an example of how multiple research-based instructional strategies can be integrated into an undergraduate biomedical engineering course. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s43683-021-00057-w.
| S-EPMC8547575 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Background:As higher education institutions strive to effectively support an increasingly diverse student body, they will be called upon to provide their faculty with tools to teach more inclusively, especially in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) classrooms where recruitment and retention of students from underrepresented and disadvantaged groups present long-standing challenges. Pedagogical training approaches to creating inclusive classrooms involve interventions that raise awareness of student and instructor social identities and explore barriers to learning, such as implicit bias, microaggressions, stereotype threat, and fixed mindset. Such efforts should focus on embracing diversity as an asset leveraged to benefit all students in their learning. In this paper, we describe the impact of multiday, off-campus immersion workshops designed to impart faculty with these tools. Based on analysis of workshop participant data, we report the resulting changes in faculty knowledge of factors affecting classroom climate and student success in STEM, attitudes about students, and motivation to adopt new teaching practices aimed at fostering equitable and culturally responsive learning environments. Results:Key findings indicate that attendees (1) increased their knowledge of social identities and the barriers to learning in STEM classrooms, particularly those faced by students from underrepresented groups in STEM or socioeconomically challenged backgrounds; (2) changed their attitudes about students' abilities as science majors, shifting away from a fixed-mindset perspective in which characteristics, such as intelligence, are perceived as innate and unalterable; and (3) modified their teaching approaches to promote inclusivity and cultural responsiveness. Conclusion:Faculty members, who are linchpins in the evolution of college classrooms into settings that provide students with equitable opportunities to succeed academically in STEM, can benefit from participating in immersion workshops structured to support their awareness of issues affecting classroom culture related to race/ethnicity, LGBTQ status, religious affiliation, ability, socioeconomic status, and other social identities that contribute to disparities in STEM achievement and persistence.
| S-EPMC7326892 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Soft robotics is an emerging field in the robotics community which deals with completely new types of robots. However, often new soft robotic designs depend on the ingenuity of the engineer rather being systematically derived. For this reason, in order to support the engineer in the design process, we present a design methodology for general technical systems in this paper and explain it in depth in the context of soft robotics. The design methodology consists of a combination of state-of-the-art engineering concepts that are arranged in such a way that the engineer is guided through the design process. The effectiveness of a systematic approach in soft robotics is illustrated on the design of a new gecko-inspired, climbing soft robot.
| S-EPMC6208798 | biostudies-other