2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

As design is the foundation of engineering, our Biomedical Engineering (BME) students design, build and test solutions to real-world biomedical problems in small teams nearly every semester as part of the curriculum. In these design courses, students deliver two presentations to their instructors and peers. The preliminary presentation is an oral, slideshow-style presentation to a subset of the design teams (~8 groups in one room) five weeks into the semester. The outcome of this session is to obtain feedback related to the problem, background, design ideas/evaluation and semester plan. The final poster presentation is open to the public and showcases all BME Design teams’ resulting products. During both, students must provide written peer feedback. However, many students choose to provide additional verbal feedback during the sessions. Teams found fellow students’ suggestions to be uniquely valuable, but in the case of the poster session, this feedback came too late. In response, we devised a low-stakes Show and Tell session which takes place directly between existing presentations to capitalize on our students’ diverse talents. The intended outcomes of the session were threefold: first, provide a formal opportunity for peer-to-peer learning; second, further the achievement of ABET Outcome 3: communicate effectively with a range of audiences through the repetitive delivery of an elevator pitch; third, drive teams to prototype earlier in the semester.

The Show and Tell session took place in the same groups as the preliminary presentations since teams already knew other projects’ background statements and initial ideas. The teams were instructed to bring ONLY their current prototype and/or representation of their final design (no slides, poster, etc.). To maintain a low-stakes environment, involvement was not graded. However, the session was moderated by an instructor in a speed-dating format. Teams were split in half so that one group would present and the other would rotate around the room. Groups would then switch to ensure all students presented and provided feedback. The 60-second elevator pitches were composed of four key elements: 1. What’s the problem?; 2. What’s the solution/value?; 3. What progress has been made? What are the major milestones?; and finally, 4. Call to action: What help or direction do they need? In total, groups had five minutes for the pitch and discussion before switching to the next team. Students were given time at the end, however, to follow up with their teammates, classmates, and instructors regarding key take-aways.

This provided teams the opportunity to show fellow classmates their recent accomplishments and obtain extensive feedback on their first generation prototypes/designs. It also offered students a chance to gain experience in quickly evaluating others’ designs and providing constructive feedback from an outside perspective. Students commented that the session forced them to prototype sooner than they had planned, their peers knew of helpful resources they were unaware of, and their peers gave suggestions they had not considered. Results will be presented from student survey data and the various iterations of this session through the pandemic will be provided.