Implementing a challenge-based learning experience in a bioinstrumentation blended course

Alejandro Santos-Díaz; Luis Montesinos; María Barrera-Esparza; Maria del Mar Perez-Desentis; David E. Salinas-Navarro

doi:10.1186/s12909-024-05462-7

Implementing a challenge-based learning experience in a bioinstrumentation blended course

Alejandro Santos-Díaz^*
, Luis Montesinos^*
, María Barrera-Esparza
, Maria del Mar Perez-Desentis
, David E. Salinas-Navarro

^*Corresponding author for this work

Tecnologico de Monterrey, School of Engineering and Sciences, Mexico City, Mexico, ROR: https://ror.org/03ayjn504, GRID: grid.419886.a, ISNI: 0000 0001 2203 4701
Tecnologico de Monterrey, Institute of Advanced Materials for Sustainable Manufacturing, Mexico City, Mexico, ROR: https://ror.org/03ayjn504, GRID: grid.419886.a, ISNI: 0000 0001 2203 4701
Hospital Angeles Lomas, Mexico City, Mexico
Electrónica y Medicina S.A. (EYMSA), Mexico City, Mexico

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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Abstract

Background: Bioinstrumentation is essential to biomedical engineering (BME) undergraduate education and professional practice. Several strategies have been suggested to provide BME students with hands-on experiences throughout the curriculum, promoting their preparedness to pursue careers in industry and academia while increasing their learning and engagement. This paper describes the implementation of challenge-based learning (CBL) in an undergraduate bioinstrumentation blended course over the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: The CBL experience was implemented in a third-year bioinstrumentation course from the BME program at Tecnologico de Monterrey. Thirty-nine students enrolled in two sections formed fourteen teams that tackled blended learning activities, including online communication, lab experiments, and in-person CBL activities. Regarding the latter, students were challenged to design, prototype, and test a respiratory or cardiac gating device for radiotherapy. An institutional student opinion survey was used to assess the success of our CBL implementation. Results: Student responses to the end-of-term survey showed that they strongly agreed that this course challenged them to learn new concepts and develop new skills. Furthermore, they rated the student-lecturer interaction very positively despite the blended format. Overall, students assessed their learning experience positively. However, implementing this CBL experience required a substantial time increase in planning, student tutoring, and constant communication between lecturers and the industry partner. Conclusion: This work provides an effective instance of CBL for BME education to improve students’ learning experience despite decreased resource efficiency. Our claim is supported by the student’s performance and the positive feedback from our industrial partner.

Original language	English
Article number	510
Number of pages	10
Journal	BMC Medical Education
Volume	24
Issue number	1
Early online date	8 May 2024
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05462-7
Publication status	Published - Dec 2024

Bibliographical note

Copyright © The Author(s) 2024. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

Funding

This research received no external funding. The APC was funded by the Writing Lab, Institute for the Future of Education, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico.

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 8 Decent Work and Economic Growth
SDG 12 Responsible Consumption and Production

Keywords

Educational innovation
Bioinstrumentation
Challenge-based learning
Biomedical engineering
Higher education

Access to Document

10.1186/s12909-024-05462-7

Implementing a challenge-based learning experience in a bioinstrumentation blended course
Copyright © The Author(s) 2024. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Final published version, 1.36 MBLicence: CC BY 4.0

Cite this

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title = "Implementing a challenge-based learning experience in a bioinstrumentation blended course",

abstract = "Background: Bioinstrumentation is essential to biomedical engineering (BME) undergraduate education and professional practice. Several strategies have been suggested to provide BME students with hands-on experiences throughout the curriculum, promoting their preparedness to pursue careers in industry and academia while increasing their learning and engagement. This paper describes the implementation of challenge-based learning (CBL) in an undergraduate bioinstrumentation blended course over the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: The CBL experience was implemented in a third-year bioinstrumentation course from the BME program at Tecnologico de Monterrey. Thirty-nine students enrolled in two sections formed fourteen teams that tackled blended learning activities, including online communication, lab experiments, and in-person CBL activities. Regarding the latter, students were challenged to design, prototype, and test a respiratory or cardiac gating device for radiotherapy. An institutional student opinion survey was used to assess the success of our CBL implementation. Results: Student responses to the end-of-term survey showed that they strongly agreed that this course challenged them to learn new concepts and develop new skills. Furthermore, they rated the student-lecturer interaction very positively despite the blended format. Overall, students assessed their learning experience positively. However, implementing this CBL experience required a substantial time increase in planning, student tutoring, and constant communication between lecturers and the industry partner. Conclusion: This work provides an effective instance of CBL for BME education to improve students{\textquoteright} learning experience despite decreased resource efficiency. Our claim is supported by the student{\textquoteright}s performance and the positive feedback from our industrial partner.",

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Implementing a challenge-based learning experience in a bioinstrumentation blended course

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

UN SDGs

Keywords

Access to Document

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