WIP: Utilizing Guided Worksheets to Address Gender Gap in Troubleshooting Laboratory Course

Sabia Zehra Abidi; Renata Fortuna Ramos

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Conference: 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access
Location: Virtual On line
Publication Date: June 22, 2020
Start Date: June 22, 2020
End Date: June 26, 2021
Conference Session: Laboratory Learning in Biomedical Engineering (Works in Progress) - June 24th
Tagged Division: Biomedical Engineering
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Page Count: 5
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--35578
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/35578
Download Count: 292

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Paper Authors

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Sabia Zehra Abidi Rice University orcid.org/0000-0002-4160-0075

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Abidi has a doctorate in biomedical engineering from the University of Texas, Austin. Her investigations in Professor Krishnendu Roy’s lab utilized in vitro 3-D polymer scaffolds and notch ligand functionalized microbeads to scale up the production of cells of hematopoietic lineage. Optimization of scaffold and microbead properties resulted in enhanced commitment to hematopoiesis and T cell lineage, respectively, demonstrating promise for cell substitutes in diseases of immunological origin. Abidi also completed postdoctoral research at NYU School of Medicine utilizing microbiological techniques to characterize a unique Plasmodium phenotype – a triggering of parasite death at high densities. The insights have implications for drug development in malaria.

Prior to her appointment at Rice, Abidi worked as a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT where she conducted research in Principal Investigator Ming Dao’s Nanomechanics Laboratory. Abidi’s studies focused on using microfluidics for diagnosis and treatment of red blood cells. Her studies uncovered novel mechanistic insights detailing the adhesion and polymerization processes leading to vaso-occlusive painful crisis in sickle cell disease. Abidi’s work also shed light on the critical roles of geometric constraints and cell subpopulation types in the treatment of sickle cell disease.

Abidi’s strong record of published work as a postdoctoral researcher at MIT and NY School of Medicine, and as a graduate student at the University of Texas, Austin has been detailed in 10 journal publications. She has three patent applications.

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Renata Fortuna Ramos Rice University

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Renata Ramos is an Associate Teaching Professor of Bioengineering and the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs of the George R. Brown School of Engineering at Rice University, 6100 Main St., Houston, TX 77005: rfr1@rice.edu

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Abstract

This Work-In-Progress describes a study that aims to assess the effect of guided instruction on students in commonly misunderstood topics in a troubleshooting lab course. The Troubleshooting of Clinically Relevant Devices lab course exposes senior level students to principles of operation, common failures, and preventive maintenance in clinically relevant lab equipment such as the centrifuge, refrigerator, syringe pump, suction pump, microscope and oxygen concentrator. The course is designed to help students practice the troubleshooting process using created failure modes. Students demonstrate learning through performance on pre-lab, in class performance, quiz and lab report grades. Briefly, the course utilizes a flipped classroom format where all students watch lecture videos and complete course readings and pre-labs individually before class. In previous course iterations, students communicated a confusion surrounding common parts critical to the device functioning. To address this feedback and specifically see how guided instruction can impact the level of process knowledge in all student populations, we performed this study. The guided instruction intervention took the format of a worksheet where students had to identify major subcomponents of key parts in devices often through the form of diagram part identification and brainstorm failure modes of the subcomponents and methods of failure diagnosis. For the centrifuge module in particular, students were guided to tear down a DC motor and older and newer centrifuge models and identify related failures and differences in operation. Students were encouraged to discuss among each other and utilize research as needed. Completion grades were awarded for these worksheets. Students encouraged to study commonly misunderstood topics without guided instruction worksheets were considered the control group (n=15) while those given the guided instruction worksheets on commonly misunderstood topics were considered the experimental groups (n=15, already completed). The effect of the guided instruction was assessed using three measures for control and experimental groups: qualitative survey to evaluate effect of intervention on knowledge gained in the course, end of semester quiz covering commonly misunderstood topics and application of principles to related topics, laboratory report performance. Statistical analyses using the student’s t test suggested that guided instruction increases long-term retention and understanding of the major components and principles of operation of the devices covered in the troubleshooting laboratory modules. Furthermore, confidence in troubleshooting skills (as seen in the survey data) was observed to increase among students in the experimental group. Collection of additional experimental and control data will confirm our observation.

Citation
Format

Abidi, S. Z., & Ramos, R. F. (2020, June), WIP: Utilizing Guided Worksheets to Address Gender Gap in Troubleshooting Laboratory Course Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line . 10.18260/1-2--35578

TY - CPAPER
AB - This Work-In-Progress describes a study that aims to assess the effect of guided instruction on students in commonly misunderstood topics in a troubleshooting lab course. The Troubleshooting of Clinically Relevant Devices lab course exposes senior level students to principles of operation, common failures, and preventive maintenance in clinically relevant lab equipment such as the centrifuge, refrigerator, syringe pump, suction pump, microscope and oxygen concentrator. The course is designed to help students practice the troubleshooting process using created failure modes. Students demonstrate learning through performance on pre-lab, in class performance, quiz and lab report grades. Briefly, the course utilizes a flipped classroom format where all students watch lecture videos and complete course readings and pre-labs individually before class. In previous course iterations, students communicated a confusion surrounding common parts critical to the device functioning. To address this feedback and specifically see how guided instruction can impact the level of process knowledge in all student populations, we performed this study. The guided instruction intervention took the format of a worksheet where students had to identify major subcomponents of key parts in devices often through the form of diagram part identification and brainstorm failure modes of the subcomponents and methods of failure diagnosis. For the centrifuge module in particular, students were guided to tear down a DC motor and older and newer centrifuge models and identify related failures and differences in operation. Students were encouraged to discuss among each other and utilize research as needed. Completion grades were awarded for these worksheets. Students encouraged to study commonly misunderstood topics without guided instruction worksheets were considered the control group (n=15) while those given the guided instruction worksheets on commonly misunderstood topics were considered the experimental groups (n=15, already completed). The effect of the guided instruction was assessed using three measures for control and experimental groups: qualitative survey to evaluate effect of intervention on knowledge gained in the course, end of semester quiz covering commonly misunderstood topics and application of principles to related topics, laboratory report performance. Statistical analyses using the student’s t test suggested that guided instruction increases long-term retention and understanding of the major components and principles of operation of the devices covered in the troubleshooting laboratory modules. Furthermore, confidence in troubleshooting skills (as seen in the survey data) was observed to increase among students in the experimental group. Collection of additional experimental and control data will confirm our observation.
AU - Sabia Zehra Abidi
AU - Renata Fortuna Ramos
CY - Virtual On line
DA - 2020/06/22
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - WIP: Utilizing Guided Worksheets to Address Gender Gap in Troubleshooting Laboratory Course
UR - https://peer.asee.org/35578
DO - 10.18260/1-2--35578
ER -