2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The COVID pandemic has introduced lower levels of attendance and engagement in the student. Our observations indicated that these levels did not fully return after transitioning back to in-person instruction. Integrating design thinking and problem-based learning (PBL) into the curriculum is thought to benefit engagement and motivation. In this study across two campuses, the authors propose to integrate themed PBL into the lecture portion of the bioinstrumentation course, which is a required course in more than 90% of the biomedical engineering or bioengineering programs. The new lectures were designed to fit into various levels of existing lab protocols. A theme of rediscovering the design of an electromyography (EMG)-based bedside controller was used throughout the course. The bioinstrumentation course contains modules of measurement principles, sensors, interfacing, filtering, and digitization. These modules are essential for modern electronics measurement systems and were the major components of the EMG controller. At the end of each module, students were asked to design the corresponding functions of the EMG controller. Students created a full design for the signal acquisition and conditioning parts of the EMG controller at the end of the course. Through our two trial runs, we have found that the students' satisfaction about the bioinstrumentation course has increased. Students' performance has increased during our trial run at [site 1], and data analysis will be taking place in [site 2] following proper IRB approval. We plan to further investigate whether the themed PBL affects students' performance compared to circuits (prerequisite of bioinstrumentation), in addition to students' motivation and interest levels in bioinstrumentation.