Experiments for Integrating BME Concepts into the ECE Curriculum

生物医学工程(BME)是增长最快的领域之一，预计就业增长率是美国整体就业增长率的两倍。然而，BME只有22所学校提供认可的本科学位，而且大多数学校没有资源提供新的学位课程。因此，对合格的BME专业人员的需求与他们的教育计划之间的差距构成了一个重大的、但尚未得到满足的国家需求。我们的目标一直是开发一种新的教育模式来帮助缩小这一差距。我们的范例是基于将新的多学科内容引入核心工程课程的一般方法。我们的方法包括将具体内容的实验室实验整合到核心课程中，以提供基本背景，然后是选修课，提供专题深度。BME作为新的内容，电气和/或计算机工程(欧洲经委会)作为核心课程。这种方法是多才多艺的，因为它可以很容易地进行修改，将其他新的多学科内容整合到任何工程计划中，以提供更全面的工程教育。这一方法的实施有两个具体目标：第一，为欧洲经委会学生提供基本的和当代的BME知识，为他们未来的职业和研究生学习机会；第二，通过熟悉现实世界医学问题的工程解决方案，提高学生对欧洲经委会概念的兴趣和理解。这些目标正在通过将一系列旨在展示各种生物多样性教育概念的实验纳入欧洲经委会的核心课程，以及一门提供全面生物多样性教育概览的新选修课来实现。我们项目的一个主要成果是一个学习范例，它可以作为将新内容整合到核心工程课程中的模式。我们的方法的全面发展将成为未来本科生辅修/集中课程在各种新内容领域的基础，例如生物医学工程。

Biomedical engineering (BME) is one of the fastest growing fields, with an expected job growth rate that is twice that of the overall job growth rate in the US. However, there are only 22 schools offering accredited undergraduate degrees in BME, and most schools do not have the resources to offer new degree programs. The resulting gap between the demand for qualified BME professionals and the programs for educating them constitutes a significant, yet unmet, national need. Our goal has been to develop a new educational paradigm to help reduce this gap. Our paradigm is based on a general method for introducing novel multidisciplinary content into core engineering curriculum. Our methodology consists of the integration of content specific laboratory experiments into core courses to provide essential background, followed by an elective providing topical depth. BME is used as the novel content and electrical and/or computer engineering (ECE) as the core curriculum. The method is versatile, as it can be easily modified to integrate other novel multidisciplinary content into any engineering program to provide a better-rounded engineering education. The implementation of this method has two specific objectives: first to provide ECE students with fundamental and contemporary BME knowledge for future career and graduate study opportunities; and second to improve students' interest in and comprehension of ECE concepts by acquainting them with engineering solutions to real world problems in medicine. These objectives are being achieved by integrating a set of experiments - designed to demonstrate a wide spectrum of BME concepts - into core ECE courses, along with a new elective providing a comprehensive BME overview. A major outcome of our project is a learning paradigm, which can serve as a model for integrating novel content into core engineering curriculum. The full development of our approach will serve as a building block for future undergraduate minor / concentration programs in a variety of novel content areas, such as biomedical engineering.