Portland, Oregon
June 23, 2024
June 23, 2024
June 26, 2024
Experimentation and Laboratory-Oriented Studies Division (DELOS)
Diversity
14
10.18260/1-2--47132
https://peer.asee.org/47132
98
Rebecca M. Reck is a Teaching Associate Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research includes alternative grading, entrepreneurial mindset, instructional laboratories, and equity-focused teaching. She teaches biomedical instrumentation, signal processing, and control systems. She earned a Ph.D. in Systems Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Iowa State University, and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.
Combining the experiences of the instructor, teaching assistant, former student, and outside knowledge, we utilized participatory action research and the application of entrepreneurial mindset to improve the sense of belonging for all students in a difficult lab course. The biomedical instrumentation lab course is required for all undergraduate bioengineering majors and is a technical elective for several other engineering majors at a large public university in the Midwest United States. The course content has been challenging for many students. Additionally, some students have noted other challenges in the lab e.g., reading labels on parts, lights, and lab bench layout. The goal of this project is to reduce these challenges with both the content, the space, and the supplies.
In the first phase of the project, the research team used methods from Universal Design for Learning (UDL), human centered design, and entrepreneurial minded learning to evaluate the laboratory space and course materials and generate ideas for improvement. Several ideas were investigated further for feasibility. In the second phase of the project, a few of these ideas were implemented in the course and feedback was solicited from current students. This paper will discuss the brainstorming process and outcomes as well as the recommendations for implementation.
Kimmel, H. R. C., & Miriyala, M. S., & Liang, H., & Agrawal, M., & Tuvilleja, K., & Reck, R. M. (2024, June), Designing a Bioinstrumentation Lab for All Learners Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--47132
ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2024 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015