Jaworski Justyn, Cho Michael
Department of Bioengineering, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX, USA.
Biomed Eng Educ. 2023 Jul;3(2):243-251. doi: 10.1007/s43683-022-00103-1. Epub 2023 Jan 23.
The unique characteristics of the training needed for today's biomedical engineers can represent a challenge in curriculum design. Practical experiential learning for biomedical engineering undergraduates is important to prevent under-developed professional skills. In this teaching tips article, we provide an example of how to incorporate experiential learning into the biomedical engineering curriculum to address the need for undergraduates to gain the desired skillsets to serve as the next generation of leaders in engineering, medicine, and business all through the lens of civic engagement. Here we outline our implementation of a recently developed service-learning course for our sophomore students that allows introduction of biomedical engineering discipline-specific design process early on in their undergraduate studies. Student teams work to design, build, and test novel devices to solve the unmet need of community partners, and in doing so, the course prepares students in developing technologies that not only address public health needs but that are also embraced by the community. This course in team-based design can help train students in analyzing real world problems for needs-based biomedical engineering through projects identified by interaction with community partners. Providing specifics of how this course was implemented as well as our reflection on student learning, we offer an analysis of the areas of success, a discussion of how interactions with community partners benefits the student professional skills development, and considerations regarding implementation. Here we highlight the ability of this course to exercise students' social awareness in the design of technologies to improve society by addressing the genuine needs of community partners.
当今生物医学工程师所需培训的独特特性在课程设计中可能构成挑战。对生物医学工程专业本科生进行实践经验学习对于防止专业技能发展不足很重要。在这篇教学小贴士文章中，我们提供了一个示例，说明如何将经验学习融入生物医学工程课程，以满足本科生获得所需技能集的需求，从而能够通过公民参与的视角，在工程、医学和商业领域成为下一代领导者。在此，我们概述了为大二学生新开发的一门服务学习课程的实施情况，该课程允许在本科学习早期就引入生物医学工程学科特定的设计流程。学生团队致力于设计、构建和测试新颖的设备，以解决社区合作伙伴未满足的需求，通过这样做，该课程帮助学生开发不仅能满足公共卫生需求而且能被社区接受的技术。这门基于团队设计的课程可以通过与社区合作伙伴互动确定的项目，帮助培养学生分析基于需求的生物医学工程实际问题的能力。我们提供了该课程实施的具体细节以及对学生学习情况的反思，分析了成功之处，讨论了与社区合作伙伴的互动如何有利于学生专业技能的发展，以及实施方面的考虑因素。在此，我们强调该课程能够通过满足社区合作伙伴的实际需求，在技术设计中培养学生的社会意识，从而改善社会。
