(C-116) Exploring Effective and Inclusive Student Engagement Strategies in a Biomedical Engineering Capstone Design Course

Introduction:: Capstone design courses in biomedical engineering are essential for preparing students to apply their knowledge and skills to real-world problems. However, devising a successful capstone course necessitates not only developing students' technical proficiency, but also cultivating effective and inclusive strategies for student engagement. This study investigates student engagement strategies that promote inclusivity, facilitate active learning, and improve student success in a capstone design course for biomedical engineering. Our investigation investigates a variety of instructional strategies, such as team-based learning, personalized mentorship, and innovative assessment techniques. Our study also featured a partnership between the instruction team and undergraduate student consultants for a semester-long exchange of perspectives on teaching and learning. Our objective was to incorporate a more inclusive and culturally responsive learning environment for all students. We analyze the efficacy of these strategies in fostering student engagement and attaining learning outcomes, with a particular emphasis on fostering inclusivity and diversity. This study's findings will provide educators with useful information for enhancing student engagement and promoting inclusivity in capstone design courses in biomedical engineering and related disciplines.


Materials and Methods:: We conducted a case study to explore effective and inclusive student engagement strategies in a biomedical engineering capstone design course. The study was carried out over two semesters and included senior-level students enrolled in the course. Some strategies included:

• Personalized mentorship: It provided guidance, support, and motivation to help students reach their full potential, involving one-on-one meetings, dialogue circle conversations, regular feedback, and ongoing communication between the mentors and student.


• Setting clear expectations: Clear expectations were provided for students regarding project objectives, team roles and responsibilities, and evaluation criteria through regular check-ins and dialogue-style conservations. This will help to create a fair and equitable environment where students understand the expectations and know how to meet them.


• Promoting diversity: Encouraging diverse teams by forming groups with individuals from various backgrounds, experiences, and skill sets, allowing students to learn from one another and ensures that every student has an equal opportunity to contribute.


• Feedback on inclusivity: Student consultants provided insightful feedback on the course's inclusiveness and proposed methods to make the course more inclusive, ensuring that the course was designed to satisfy the diverse requirements of its students.


• Peer-to-peer support: Student consultants offered a unique perspective on inclusive practices due to their shared experiences and similar age to course participants. This helped students develop a sense of trust and mutual respect, as well as encourage peer-to-peer support.

Results, Conclusions, and Discussions:: This experience contributed to creating a culturally responsive learning environments for all students by opening a systematic exchange of perspectives on teaching and learning. The inclusive practices proved to be especially valuable during Hy-flex teaching during the pandemic semesters. We were able to learn how to identify low confidence, anxiety, and emotionally-deprived students and make changes to their interactions to allow students time and space to express their questions and thoughts. The effectiveness in creating a reprehensible learning environment can be measured by gathering data on the student’s confidence, motivation, engagement, and technical skills from their perspective. Even though the sample size was considerably smaller by 50% in 2022 compared to 2021, 6 out of the 7 students showed more confidence in their understanding of technical skills and solving problems. This is an improvement from 9 out of 14 students that strongly agreed that the course improved their ability to identify, formulate, and solve problems. This trend of students strongly agreeing increased to 85.7% in 2022, and it continued for all other measurable categories, such as confidence, motivation, engagement, and technical skills.

The multiple data collection methods allowed us to gain a comprehensive understanding of the various effective and inclusive student engagement strategies in the biomedical engineering capstone design course and helped us to identify areas for improvement to enhance student engagement and success. Our partnership with student consultants has explored student well-being, diversification, and inclusivity, mutual academic success, educator growth, student-faculty relations to enhance the learning experience.


Acknowledgements (Optional): :

References (Optional): :