(C-105) Innovation-Based Learning in Graduate and Undergraduate Biomedical Engineering Education

Introduction:: Seismic changes in our society require new professional and technical skill sets and significant changes in how we educate engineering students. For example, the World Economic Forum's "The Future of Jobs Report 2020" listed the top 15 skills needed in 2025, and chief among these were innovation and professional skills. This paper describes a new educational foundation, Innovation-Based Learning (IBL), for educating biomedical engineers to achieve the desired skillsets for 2025.

The following ansatz describes learning as L = FP + A, where L is learning, FP are the field's fundamental principles, and A is the application that helps assess the student's understanding of the FP. Variable A is often homework, tests, and quizzes in a traditional class. In IBL, the FPs are assessed by the ability of the student to use them to create value outside the classroom walls by innovation. Here we define innovation as original ideas that have value, where subject-matter experts assess the value of an original idea. Examples of value creation include conferences, invention disclosures, scholarships, grants, business plan competitions, and more. Rather than relying on homework, quizzes, and tests to assess student learning, creating value is the assessment tool. Students work on teams and continuously practice the skills requested in the Future of Jobs report.

This paper details the curriculum design and implementation with results from the first year.

Materials and Methods:: A new undergraduate program at the University of North Dakota was approved in the spring of 2022. The backbone of the curriculum is a series of IBL classes where every semester, students master the fundamental principles of anatomy and physiology and then use these to create value. The IBL program launched in the fall of 2022 with 28 students (3 transfer and 25 first-year students). Additionally, IBL was introduced to the graduate program in specific classes during the summer of 2022 and throughout the ensuing academic year.

One class period is dedicated to the fundamental principles, and the other class period is dedicated to innovation teams reporting and practicing their presentations. IBL courses are offered in hybrid mode, with on-campus and synchronous remote students meeting together, and some remote students are asynchronous.

Results, Conclusions, and Discussions:: The external value created by students in one academic year is summarized below.

• Seven conference abstracts accepted


• Two conference presentation awards


• one pending business licensing agreement


• one project was awarded $50,000 in seed funding


• six summer internships awarded by biomedical engineering companies


• three viable invention disclosures


• one magazine article


• three conference papers accepted


• two conference posters accepted


• four conference presentations


• two competitive scholarships awarded.

Graduate students produced two contributions to the list above, an invention disclosure, and one graduate student contributed to the undergraduate team that received $50,000 in seed funding.

As of this writing, about seven more external value products are in submission from the spring semester and will be added to the totals for academic year 1.

In conclusion, the launch of the IBL model for educating biomedical engineers was beyond our expectations. We hope that as these freshmen become sophomore leaders, the following year will be even more productive in terms of external value creation.

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