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Development of a biomedical engineering course for high school students using a framework of student-centered pedagogy

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Conference

ASEE Southeast Section Conference

Location

Arlington, Virginia

Publication Date

March 12, 2023

Start Date

March 12, 2023

End Date

March 14, 2023

Conference Session

K-12 and Outreach

Tagged Topics

Diversity and Professional Engineering Education Papers

Page Count

7

DOI

10.18260/1-2--44999

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/44999

Download Count

101

Paper Authors

biography

Marjorie Letitia Hubbard North Carolina School of Science and Math

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Dr. Marjorie Letitia Hubbard is a member of the engineering and research faculty at the North Carolina School of Science and Math (NCSSM) in Durham, North Carolina. As an engineering instructor at NCSSM, Dr. Hubbard has taught a variety of residential and online biomedical engineering courses, and she is also engaged in developing and implementing curriculum to prepare students for success in the research environment. For the past five years, Dr. Hubbard has served as the program lead for the NCSSM-Durham Step-up-to-STEM summer outreach program which targets underrepresented minorities and disadvantaged groups from across North Carolina. Dr. Hubbard is a 2020 recipient of the UNC Board of Governor's Teaching Award (Service to Students), a 2022 recipient of the Women in Engineering Proactive Network (WEPAN) Educator's Award, and a 2022 UNC Faculty Fellow.

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Abstract

The value of early exposure to engineering education for increasing the persistence of students in STEM fields is widely acknowledged in the academic literature. However, in contrast to traditional undergraduate engineering courses which tend to have well-developed curriculum, high school educators often have to piece together specialized lessons from many different sources to create a long-term (semester or year-long) curriculum that is rigorous yet accessible for students who are new to the field of engineering.

This paper describes the development of a biomedical engineering curriculum for high school students that integrates design thinking using the framework of student-centered pedagogical practices such as inquiry based learning, problem based learning, and open pedagogy. This approach to teaching engineering, here termed design-based inquiry, uses guided inquiry in combination with modular design projects to help students become comfortable with innovating new ideas. By its design, the course motivates student interest over longer periods of time and enables students with minimal prior exposure to engineering to engage interactively with the instructor and their peers.

Hubbard, M. L. (2023, March), Development of a biomedical engineering course for high school students using a framework of student-centered pedagogy Paper presented at ASEE Southeast Section Conference, Arlington, Virginia. 10.18260/1-2--44999

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