Professor Texas A&M University, Department of Biomedical Engineering College Station, Texas, United States
Introduction:: Engineering education is rapidly changing, motivated by deep transformations in society, the workforce, technology, and higher education. Rapid changes in healthcare and underlying genetic and molecular data also affect biomedical engineering education. A comprehensive process is required to permit engineering programs to comprehensively redesign engineering curricula in response to these internal and external transformative motivators. This paper presents the interactive application of a teleological approach to comprehensively redesign an undergraduate engineering curriculum. The comprehensive redesign of a 128-credit hour, nationally-ranked biomedical engineering undergraduate program at an R1 university is used as an exemplar.
Materials and Methods:: The adaption of a teleological approach – Kotter’s change model – was employed in an iterative fashion to guide the curriculum redesign from concept to deployment over a 3-year period and involving a diverse team of administrators, faculty, students, and advisory board members. Data collected during five iterative cycles of Kotter’s change model (Figure 1) include archival records, direct observation, surveys, interviews, and documents resulting from committee meetings, faculty meetings, and faculty retreats.
Results, Conclusions, and Discussions:: The application of the iterative change model led to a comprehensive redesign of a 128-credit hour curriculum launched fall of 2023. Each iteration involved all eight steps of Kotter's change model. The redesign included the transformation of a T-shaped curriculum to a π-shaped curriculum; the definition of a new governing pedagogical framework; the reimagination of courses to foster concept and skill integration; expansion and vertical integration of design; the creation of new technical elective tracks; and creation of new courses to prepare students for the current and future workforce.
This teleological approach has the ability to be applied to other biomedical engineering programs, regardless of size. Application of the change model demonstrates the importance of allowing adequate time for each of the eight steps to occur, as well as the importance of including all affected stakeholders. Secondary benefits to the redesigned curriculum were unity among the faculty, curriculum learning outcomes and competencies defined, and engagement with students.
