Scaffolding and Assessing Professional Design Skills Using an Active-learning Studio-style Classroom
- Conference
- Location
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San Antonio, Texas
- Publication Date
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June 10, 2012
- Start Date
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June 10, 2012
- End Date
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June 13, 2012
- ISSN
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2153-5965
- Conference Session
- Tagged Division
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Biomedical
- Page Count
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20
- Page Numbers
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25.1140.1 - 25.1140.20
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--21897
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/21897
- Download Count
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340
Paper Authors
Jamie Lynn Brugnano Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering, Purdue University
Jamie Brugnano is a Ph.D candidate in the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering at Purdue University. Her doctoral research is focused on intracellular drug delivery of peptide-based therapeutics for inflammatory applications. She earned her B.S. in biology from Harvey Mudd College. Her research interests include tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, drug delivery, and effective techniques to improve biomedical engineering education. She has six peer-reviewed publications and is committed to mentoring and training undergraduates in research. Brugnano is active within her department and has served as the President of the Biomedical Engineering Graduate Association, led the Outreach and Community Service Committee, and is currently a biomedical engineering ambassador for the Women in Engineering program. She has been recognized for her research, teaching, and service at Purdue through several awards, including the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, the Biomedical Engineering Society Graduate Research Award, the Estus H. and Vashti L. Magoon Award for Excellence in Teaching, the Purdue Student Engineering Foundation Outstanding Graduate Student Award, and the Emily M. Wadsworth Graduate Mentoring Award.
Kevin Andrew Richards Purdue University
K. Andrew Richards is a doctoral student studying physical education pedagogy at Purdue University. He received his B.S. in physical education from Springfield College (Mass.) and an M.S. from Purdue University prior to beginning doctoral studies. Richards has taught several physical education teacher education courses at Purdue and is involved in the supervision of student teachers in health and physical education. His research interests relate to teacher preparation and continuing professional development. Specifically, Richards’s master’s thesis examined the impact of continuing professional development through a PEP Grant and state mandated induction assistance on the socialization of a physical education teacher. He has also co-authored multiple papers and conference presentations related to physical education teacher professional development.
Marcia A. Pool Purdue University
Marcia Pool is an Instructional Laboratory Coordinator in the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering at Purdue University. She is responsible for overseeing and assessing junior level laboratories, bioinstrumentation, and biotransport, and is involved with teaching and mentoring students in the senior design capstone course. Recently, she has worked with colleagues to plan and implement a problem-based learning approach to the biotransport laboratory to improve students’ experimental design skills and has modified the course based on continual assessment practices during the first offering. Currently, she is participating in the implementation of active learning studio-style teaching methods in the sophomore and junior level seminar courses. She is also actively engaged at the local and national level with the biomedical engineering honor society, AEMB.
Allison L. Sieving Purdue University
Allison Sieving is the laboratory and assessment Coordinator for the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering at Purdue University. She is responsible for teaching undergraduate laboratories and managing the ABET assessment program for the Weldon School. More recently, she has been involved with integrating active learning practices developed for the senior-level course, Professional Elements of Design, into the sophomore- and junior-level curriculum.
Juan Diego Velasquez Purdue University, West Lafayette
Juan Diego Velasquez, Assistant Director for TA and Curricular Development, Ph.D., (industrial engineering). Velasquez received his Ph.D. in industrial engineering from Purdue University, where he worked as a Graduate Teaching Assistant for the honors program in the School of Engineering Education. He joined the Center for Instructional Excellence in 2004. He currently coordinates university-wide initiatives for graduate teaching assistants (annual all-campus teaching orientation, annual campus recognition of graduate teaching excellence, and teaching certification programs), supports service-learning university-wide efforts (Community of Service-learning Faculty Fellows), and oversees the professional development of CIE’s graduate assistants. Velasquez is Co-chair of the Committee for the Education of Teaching Assistants. He is an Associate Fellow of Purdue’s Teaching Academy and a Senior Researcher in the Production, Robotics, and Integration Software for Manufacturing and Management (PRISM) Center in the School of Industrial Engineering. He serves in the HUB-Empowered Cyber Reach Engineering Committee and the Colombia-Purdue Institute for Advanced Scientific Research Committee. Juan has published several articles on the application of best-matching protocols in production settings (industrial engineering) and collaborated in the publication of Springer’s Handbook of Automation (Springer, 2009).
Sherry L. Voytik-Harbin Purdue University, West Lafayette
Ann E. Rundell Purdue University, West Lafayette
Ann Rundell is an Associate Professor in the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering at Purdue University. She received her B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania. She earned her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University. Her research interests apply systems and control theory to control cellular and physiological processes for developing and designing diagnostics and therapeutics. She is actively involved in curriculum design and employs pedagogical advances towards engineering education. She has co-authored more than 25 peer-reviewed articles, is a senior member in IEEE, serves as a Section Editor for the Encyclopedia of Systems Biology, and received the NSF CAREER award.
Abstract
Scaffolding and Assessing Professional Design Skills using an Active-Learning Studio Style ClassroomIntroduction: Upon graduation, engineers are expected to have not only technical expertise butalso professional skills which will help secure their success as practicing engineers.2 A studio-style course was designed to teach biomedical engineering professional skills that complementsand supplements a traditional laboratory capstone design experience. This course scaffoldsstudent’s practice4 and enables demonstration of professional skills proficiency in this class andsupports the associated senior design laboratory assignments. Herein, we describe thepedagogical approach, course content and design, plus direct and indirect assessment results.Materials and Methods: Fifty-four senior biomedical engineering undergraduate students wereenrolled in this course which addressed biomedical engineering professional skills including:ethics, technical writing, regulatory issues, human and animal subjects, economic considerations,and entrepreneurship considerations. The class met once a week for 90 minutes with a briefintroductory lecture (< 20 minutes) followed by time dedicated for students to work on in-classassignments, both individually and in their design teams with instructor interactions. To ensurestudents demonstrated proficiency in each topic, students revised their assignments based uponconstructive feedback until it was satisfactory. Scaffolding was provided through assignmentdesign, instructor feedback during the studio session, and in written feedback on assignments.The students would subsequently complete related assignments for their associated lab courseemploying a fading strategy.4 Student assessment was achieved through graded weeklyassignments, while course assessment and effectiveness was determined through Internal ReviewBoard-approved analysis of student grades and student surveys. Student written feedback wasanalyzed using inductive analysis and the constant comparative method by an expert inqualitative data analysis who was external to the course.3 Assignments were evaluated accordingto Bloom’s Taxonomy and mapped to Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology(ABET) criteria1.Results and Discussion: The course format ensured that students had the opportunity to practiceand demonstrate proficiency in the professional skills measured prior to independent applicationwithin the associated senior design laboratory assignments. On average, students were requiredto revise 3-4 assignments (14 total) to demonstrate skill/concept proficiency. Assignmentevaluation according to Bloom’s Taxonomy required students to perform at the level ofevaluation and synthesis. Through assignment assessment, we discovered that our seniorsstruggled with design of experiments and statistical analysis; this prompted a revision of a pre-requisite course. Overall, students had a positive response to the course format and valued theskills that were being taught. There was an increase in the percentage of students who believedthat they had in-depth knowledge of course topics by the conclusion of the course (Figure 1).Conclusion: In summary, course objectives were achieved and students demonstratedproficiency of the professional design skills. This pedagogical approach towards teaching theseprofessional skills was found to be engaging and effective; it may be broadly applicable to otherbiomedical engineering programs and engineering disciplines. 45 Pre ∗ 40 Post ∗ ∗ ∗ 35 30 Percentage (%) of Class ∗ 25 20 15 10 5 0 Project Mgmt & Scheduling Thorough Due Diligence Hazard Assessment Role of Testing in Design Ethics Engineering Specifications Human & Animal Studies Regulatory Affairs Course TopicFigure 1. Change in student opinion regarding their in-depth knowledge of course topics atthe start (pre) and the conclusion (post) of the course. Percent was determined from n=54 forthe pre-course survey and n=52 for the post-course survey. Statistical significance (p<0.05) asdetermined from a Chi-square test between pre- and post-surveys is indicated by the asterisk.References:1 Accreditation Board for Enginering and Technology (ABET), Engineering Criteria 2000, Baltimore, MD, 1998.2 Newport, C., and D. Elms, “Effective engineers,” International Journal of Engineering Education, 13(5):325-332, 1997.3 Patton, M. Q., Qualitative research and evaluation methods (3rd Ed), Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2002.4 Sheppard, S., and Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching., Educating engineers : designing for the future of the field, 1st ed., San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2009.
Brugnano, J. L., & Richards, K. A., & Pool, M. A., & Sieving, A. L., & Velasquez, J. D., & Voytik-Harbin, S. L., & Rundell, A. E. (2012, June), Scaffolding and Assessing Professional Design Skills Using an Active-learning Studio-style Classroom Paper presented at 2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, San Antonio, Texas. 10.18260/1-2--21897
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