2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Quality professional development for teachers is essential to efforts to improve classroom instruction and student learning. The Colleges of Engineering and Education at [a large midwestern university] work together to offer a summer research experience for pre-engineering and science teachers with the dual goals of exposure to biomedical engineering (BME) research and creation of a BME curriculum for use in their own classrooms. The six-week Bioengineering Experience for Science Teachers (“BEST Program”) matches teachers to a laboratory under the guidance of a research-active BME faculty mentor. In partnership with faculty who are recognized experts in curriculum design and the teaching of secondary science in urban schools, participant-tailored curricular mentoring focuses on principles of effective planning, instruction, and assessment directly connected to the teachers’ classroom BME curriculum. For four days each week throughout the duration of the program, the BEST Teacher Fellows observe and participate in engineering lab research and on Fridays come together in a standards-aligned curriculum development workshop. This paper summarizes 8 years of self-reported feedback before, during and after participating in the BEST Program. One unanticipated positive programmatic outcome is the community of practice that develops each year amongst the BEST Teacher Fellows that enhances the participant experience. A key component of the weekly curriculum workshops is sharing out of ideas for translating their experience to develop curricula, and teachers found this to be extremely beneficial in their active learning and collective participation throughout the program. The collaborative nature of the program across both the Colleges of Engineering and Education was seen as an important aspect that promoted teachers’ learning in the program. This summer research experience offers teacher participants the opportunity to be immersed in both content and pedagogy for professional development.