2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

An Adaptive Scaffolding Approach Based on Team Dynamics in an Integrated Masters and Undergraduate Bioengineering Capstone Design Course

Presented at ELOS Technical Session 4 - Design, Participation, and Projects

Bioengineering exists at the intersection of numerous engineering disciplines, making collaboration and team-based design critical to the work of bioengineers. Team-based work such as course projects offer students practical experience in the type of work they can expect later in their careers. As such, our department aligned an undergraduate senior design capstone course and a master of engineering (M.Eng.) project management capstone course to replicate a collaborative, industry organizational structure. In this combined course, undergraduate and masters students work together in different roles and capacities on a capstone design project. The combined nature of the course requires fostering a focus on collaboration which will prove valuable to many students’ future careers and success. Within the coursework, curricular scaffolding of team organization helps students to achieve project objectives while reducing team friction. The scaffolding is provided immediately at the project initiation with student-led development of a team contract that lays out roles, responsibilities, and expectations. Mid-semester, undergraduate students revisit the team contract to reflect on team dynamics and make any necessary changes to roles, approaches, and the contract itself. When evaluating our practices as course instructors, we use a sentiment analysis approach to understand student attitudes from open-ended written feedback at the midpoint of the course. We made changes in response to student feedback the following semesters, adjusting course assignments and structure with the goal of improving student expectations and team dynamics. Engaging regularly with student feedback, we iterated the design of our course, embracing adaptability to cater to the evolving needs of students. The objective was to gain insights into how course modifications have influenced student attitudes toward team collaboration and their overall experience in this unique educational context. The findings of this analysis offer valuable information for instructors, curriculum designers, and administrators seeking to enhance the quality of capstone design courses in bioengineering and similar interdisciplinary fields.

Authors

Eliot Bethke University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign [biography]

Eliot Bethke is a Ph.D student in Bioengineering at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). He holds a B.S. in bioengineering also from UIUC. Prior to entering graduate school, Eliot spent 8 years working in small businesses ranging in focus from healthcare to medical education to battery technology. In 2018, he was hired as an instructor at the Carle Illinois College of Medicine to assist in constructing curricular components to teach medical students about key medical and engineering technologies. This experience awakened a love of instructing and curricular design, which guides his current research studying the impact of technologies and curricular design on students and medical professionals.
Dr. Ali Ansari http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2957-8634 University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign [biography]

Ali Ansari is a Teaching Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He holds a Masters and Ph.D in Bioengineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and graduated from Southern Methodist University with a degree in Electrical Engineering. Ali has been teaching for the past two years at Bucknell University in both the Biomedical Engineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering and been focusing on student focused pedagogy centered around Game-based learning techniques.
Dr. Joe Bradley University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign [biography]

Joe Bradley is a Clinical Assistant Professor in Bioengineering in the Grainger College of Engineering, a Health Innovation Professor and the Director of Engineering Education and Entrepreneurship in the Carle Illinois College of Medicine. His research focuses primarily on engineering design/Bio Design collaboration in transdisciplinary teams. He has used and developed tools to study the alignment of products and services with organizational processes as an organization seeks to address needs and bring new products and services to the market.
Dr. Jennifer R. Amos http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9437-8201 University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign [biography]

Dr Amos joined the Bioengineering Department at the University of Illinois in 2009 and is currently a Teaching Professor in Bioengineering.
Dr. Holly M. Golecki http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3691-0420 University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign [biography]

Dr. Holly Golecki (she/her) is a Teaching Assistant Professor in Bioengineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Holly studies biomaterials and soft robotics and their applications in the university classroom, in undergraduate research and in engaging K12 students in STEM. Holly received her BS/MS in Materials Science and Engineering from Drexel University and her PhD in Engineering Sciences from Harvard University.

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