The School will use the grant to employ teaching principles used in architectural design education to transform its 5-course, core undergraduate sequence. This is the first step in a plan to expand design education to address challenges students face in bridging conceptual knowledge with practice and improving their ability to integrate knowledge across scales.
With the new approach, implemented by professor and former undergraduate program director Dr. Jonathan Butcher, students will work in small groups, in collaboration with the Architecture school, in an innovative studio learning model to model, analyze, and design products to present in class during feedback critiques. "We believe this new teaching strategy, paired with emphasis on applying engineering analysis to complex biology, will improve students’ proficiency and prepare them for the variability and uncertainty common in their careers while building essential communication and teamwork skills," said Butcher.
"This project is impressive for both its originality and the scope of its ambition," said ALI initiative director and Andrew H. and James S. Tisch Distinguished University Professor of physics Peter Lepage of the Meinig School’s plans. "It’s highly interactive pedagogy emphasizing design is well aligned with the research-based active learning strategies promoted by the ALI. It will provide a model that should be useful to departments across engineering and beyond."
ALI provides support for department teams as they redesign undergraduate courses to implement active learning strategies. These courses have energized the learning experience for thousands of Cornell students and have led to deeper engagement, greater connection with peers, and increased interaction with instructors.
Mridu Saikia
MTEI/Cristel
Meinig School lecturer Mridusmita Saikia and senior lecturer Shivaun Archer also received an award to bring active-learning components to the required undergraduate course BME 2210, Biomaterials: Foundations and Application in Medicine.
Saikia and Archer's proposal aims to provide students a taste of the diversity and teamwork that occurs in professional biomedical settings through research design and laboratory testing activities, and ethics discussions relating to biomedical design and healthcare. Saikia and Archer will implement the proposed redesign this fall and will incorporate team-based, hands-on components, and inclusive pedagogy with live feedback.
Shivaun Archer
"We believe these new active learning components can deepen knowledge and provide students the skills to critically analyze data and provide solutions to biomedical challenges," said Saikia about the redesigned course.
The award is administered by Cornell Engineering's James McCormick Family Teaching Excellence Institute (MTEI)'s 2022-23 Course Redesign Initiative to Support
MTEI director Kathy Dimiduk said of the proposal, "Mridu and Shivaun’s proposal to involve sophomores across the semester in designing their own end-of-semester experiment that ties together what they learned is an excellent example of the Course Redesign Program’s goals to enhance the student learning and engagement in core, required undergraduate courses. Weaving in an ethics component to the lab design strengthens an already great project."
