VaNTH ERC for Bioengineering Educational Technologies

The "How People Learn" Framework as a Paradigm for Bioengineering Education

A major goal of the Vanderbilt-Northwestern-Texas-Harvard/MIT (VaNTH) Engineering Research Center (ERC) for Bioengineering Educational Technologies was to study the nature of bioengineering educational venues and to provide guidance for the design of bioengineering teaching materials based on the learning science principles discussed in the report "How People Learn" (the HPL Framework) from the National Academy of Sciences. The strategy for this effort concerned bringing learning scientists into contact with bioengineering educators and students and conducting research to test the hypothesis that HPL-based teaching materials were effective in bioengineering classrooms.

VaNTH's goal was to show how the HPL principles of student centered, knowledge centered, assessment centered and community centered learning could be implemented within the bioengineering curriculum and to determine if this would lead to novel, highly effective new approaches to instruction. Test beds in biomechanics, biotechnology, biomedical optics, imaging, signal analysis, and systems physiology were identified and modules were introduced and evaluated. Results include the following: 1) a Web-based instructional module on the HPL principles; 2) a design white paper for developing HPL-based modules, mosaics (groups of modules) and courses in bioengineering; 3) an assessment and evaluation primer for the design and evaluation of modules and other materials; 4) a detailed evaluation of the effectiveness of modules.

Preliminary results from the evaluation of 35 modules show that HPL-based instruction outperforms control significantly (weighted effect size of 0.667 indicated improvement by 2/3 of a standard deviation relative to control instruction). This work has laid the foundation for an expansion of HPL methods into other domains of bioengineering. It has allowed a detailed design for evaluation to be developed that will allow the determination of how HPL methods in bioengineering can influence classroom behaviors, and skills and knowledge gains by students. We can now address crucial questions in the ways that bioengineering students can be educated to become adaptive experts, not just static experts. A clear demonstration of the effectiveness of these new methods for educational design will have significant impact on educators in bioengineering seeking to develop new curricula and teaching materials. This study is the foundation for further exploration that will provide insight into the effectiveness of new methods for developing adaptive experts in bioengineering.

To learn more about this topic:
Visit the VaNTH ERC for Bioengineering Educational Technologies web site at http://www.vanth.org/index.htm

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Panel from web-based learning module on "How
People Learn".

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Last modified: April 4, 2007