(C-106) CURRICULUM RENEWAL IN A BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING GRADUATE PROGRAM

Introduction:: The School of Biomedical Engineering (SBME) at Dalhousie University was collaboratively established in 1999 as a unit jointly within both the Faculties of Medicine and Engineering. The program offers training at the Master’s and Doctorate level with a current complement of 37 appointed, cross-appointed and adjunct faculty and approximately 35 graduate students. Starting in 2019, we initiated a review that began a planned major renewal of our curriculum. Curriculum renewal is an important ongoing activity for our and any program. This major renewal allowed us to identify gaps and redundancies, refine and optimize for desired learning outcomes with efficient delivery of subject material and improve student learning experiences. Biomedical engineering is a continuously evolving and multidisciplinary field with great breadth, bridging across engineering, biological sciences, and medicine that presented substantial and unique challenges. Students must develop and integrate knowledge, skills and understanding across broad disciplines, while becoming experts in their thesis areas. We as educators must find ways of building multidisciplinary skill development into the program while resisting the urge to “teach everything to everyone”. We developed a program to target the breadth of core concepts of biomedical engineering, introducing cross-discipline knowledge to contribute to diverse biomedical goals, and enabling students the time for exploration at depth in their thesis research. This multi-year approach was faculty-driven, informed by multiple stakeholders from current students and alumni to external and internal partners, and supported by educational development experts at our institution.


Materials and Methods::
Guided by the literature and in collaboration with faculty and our Center for Teaching and Learning, our Graduate Curriculum Committee embarked on an evidence-informed process, through the following steps: (1) Informed Imagining: what are the needs of our program’s stakeholders? What learning outcomes (knowledge, skills, and competencies) should our students be able to demonstrate upon completion of the program? (2) Review of Current Program: What does our program offer now? (3) Environmental Scan and Best Practices:We reviewed curricula from similar programs across Canada to compare to ours (course load, course offerings, evaluation). (4) Identify Congruencies in our Curriculum: mapping our current program components to desired learning outcomes identified in step 1: what is redundant, what is missing?









Steps 1-4 were informed using several approaches. First, anonymous surveys were sent to faculty and students (current and former) that inquired about components such as course load, course design and content, and the alignment of learning outcomes with career paths of our graduates. Second, a departmental self-study was completed and reviewed by external committee who returned recommendations on our curriculum design.These were followed by (5) Implementation: the revision of program components and assessments, developing new courses to address issues identified in steps 1-4. (6) Final Curriculum Mapping: linking our new program components to the learning outcomes defined in step 1.




Results, Conclusions, and Discussions::



Our curriculum review and renewal resulted in several key changes to our graduate program. We have a comprehensive set of learning outcomes that are clearly mapped to our program components. Redundant material was eliminated, and new content introduced where needed. Additional formative feedback was introduced across our program components. Three new core courses were developed to ensure more uniform learning outcomes across students and promote a more cross disciplinary community with students of all backgrounds interacting and collaborating more frequently. Two of the courses, “Biomedical Engineering Foundations I and II” deliver a breadth of subject matter related to modern topics in biomedical engineering and is split into sub modules related to the main fields that make up biomedical engineering (eg. biomechanics, imaging, tissue engineering, etc.). The foundations courses also interweave modules that provide training in the design development and writing of a graduate degree thesis proposal. The third course, “Biomedical Engineering Research Methods and Design” teaches experimental design, data analysis, and best practices for the design of biomedical technologies and devices. The core syllabi will be updated yearly to ensure that the modules represent the latest state of the art in the field. Additional training in professionalism, ethics, and EDIA (equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility) are embedded across program components in the curriculum. At minimum a fourth course will be required that will be related to the student's thesis and research field. This course(s) can be either: one of the additional department course offerings or a course in another department at the graduate level. With this re-design, the number of required graduate courses in our program were reduced to be in line with similar programs across Canada.









Curriculum renewal will play an ongoing and continuous role for our program starting with our plan to assess the effectiveness of the new curriculum in its launch in Fall 2023. Going forward we will solicit feedback from students, stakeholders and educators and evaluate the curriculum’s effectiveness in achieving our learning outcomes. Based on feedback, we will make revisions or adjustments to the curriculum to ensure its ongoing relevance and effectiveness.








Acknowledgements (Optional): : The authors wish to thank Elizabeth Gillis, Educational Developer (Curriculum), and Susan Joudrey, Associate Director, of Dalhousie's Centre for Learning and Teaching for their guidance, support, and feedback.

References (Optional): :
Patrick, C.W., Machek, J., Avazmohammadi, R., Alge, D.L., Peak, C.W., McShane, M. (2022). Process for Faculty-Driven, Data-Informed Curriculum Continuity Review in Biomedical Engineering. Biomed Eng Education, 2, 265–280 (2022).









Christensen Hughes, J. (2007). Supporting Curriculum Assessment and Development: Implications for the Faculty Role and Institutional Support. In P. Wolf & J. Christensen Hughes (Eds.), Curriculum development in higher education: Faculty-driven processes and practices (pp. 107-110). New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 112.









Holley, K. (2009). The challenge of an interdisciplinary curriculum: A cultural analysis of a doctoral-degree program in neuroscience. Higher education, 58, 241-255.




Mills, S., & Bens, S. (2012). There is too much on the curriculum plate! Using the A5 model to streamline, align and redesign. Presented at the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Annual Conference, Montreal, QC, June 2012.




Wuetherick, B. (2013). Curriculum Development and Renewal: a faculty-driven and evidence informed approach. Focus on University Teaching and Learning.