scholarly journals TEACHING ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY TO ENGINEERS IN THE BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING PROGRAM

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zahra Moussavi ◽  
Brian Lithgow
Keyword(s):  
Biomedical Engineering ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Complex Problem ◽  
Human Anatomy ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Problem Solving Skills ◽  
Undergraduate Level ◽  
Anatomy And Physiology ◽  
Teaching Anatomy

The merger of natural sciences with engineering and creation of biomedical engineering (BME) has brought innovation to the practice of medicine that could only be dreamed about a decade ago. By many accounts, we are now at the outset of Biomedical Century, and the need for engineers, natural scientists and physicians trained in biomedicine is greater than ever. While several universities in US and Canada have started BME program at the undergraduate level, many universities, particularly in Canada, have the BME program at graduate level with some BME related courses at undergraduate level. Therefore, we must be able to teach the fundamentals of human anatomy and physiology to students with engineering background, whom may have no background in biology.While a simple solution might be to refer students to take anatomy courses in the faculty of medicine, the author of this paper believes these courses would be much more efficient if they are taught by an engineer trained in medicine. There are three main approaches in engineering design: top-down and bottom-up and a blend of the two approaches [1-3]. There are many debates as which approach is most efficient in a particular area of science and philosophy. we believe engineers often use top-bottom approach for learning new concepts; through their main discipline, engineers, in general, learn the problem solving skills, in which they try to break a complex problem into several smaller problems and narrow down logically by cause and effect analysis; in another word they follow a top-down approach. Being trained with this approach, therefore, they may feel lost in a basic anatomy or physiology course as they often have a bottom-up approach in teaching the materials. This paper discusses the top-down approach in teaching anatomy and physiology to engineering students, and offers some insights for teaching BME courses.

Top down, bottom up and classroom reading anxiety and their effect on reading performance of undergraduate engineering students in Pakistan

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 590-603
Author(s):  
Ashfaque Hussain Soomro ◽  
Imran Khan ◽  
Muhammad Younus
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Students ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Reading Performance ◽  
First Year ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Undergraduate Engineering ◽  
Reading Anxiety ◽  
The Impact

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore EFL reading anxiety of first-year undergraduate engineering students and its effect on their reading performance in a public sector engineering university in Pakistan. It specifically aims to explore their top-down, bottom-up and classroom EFL reading anxiety. Design/methodology/approach Data for the present study were collected from 200 first-year engineering students to explore their reading anxiety. A 20-item questionnaire developed by Zoghi and Alivandivafa (2014) was used to measure students’ EFL reading anxiety, while an IELTS academic reading test was used to measure their reading performance. The data were analyzed through exploratory factorial analysis and multiple regression analysis to determine which type of reading anxiety has a significant effect on students’ reading performance. Findings It was found that the bottom-up reading anxiety and the classroom reading anxiety have a significant negative impact on the reading performance of the first-year undergraduate engineering students of a Pakistani university. However, top-down reading anxiety has an insignificant negative impact on the reading performance of university students. Research limitations/implications The data for the current study were drawn from one Pakistani public sector engineering university, and all the students were first-year undergraduates. The data were collected through a self-reported questionnaire and IELTS (academic) reading test. Some of the students may be unfamiliar with the IELTS test pattern, so their reading performance might have been affected. Practical implications Teachers should adopt such a methodology in their EFL classrooms which helps students reduce their reading anxiety. Reading texts must be selected considering the proficiency level of students, and reading strategies must be explicitly taught to reduce bottom-up and top-down reading anxieties. Teachers should create a positive learning environment in their classroom by encouraging students to make an effort to improve their reading skills in order to deal with classroom reading anxiety. Students must be explained that they should help one another rather than ridiculing each other’s reading mistakes. Differentiated instruction can also be adopted to facilitate weak readers. The teachers can provide additional/out of the class support to weak readers in order to help them deal with reading anxiety. Originality/value The EFL reading anxiety among university students in the Pakistani context has received little attention from the researchers. Furthermore, although the impact of EFL reading anxiety on EFL students’ reading performance has been explored previously, the impact of three types of EFL reading anxiety on EFL learners’ reading performance has not been adequately investigated.

A novel approach to physiology education for biomedical engineering students

2007 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. DiCecco ◽  
J. Wu ◽  
K. Kuwasawa ◽  
Y. Sun
Keyword(s):  
Rhode Island ◽  
Biomedical Engineering ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Engineering Programs ◽  
Anatomy And Physiology ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Engineering Department ◽  
Physiology Laboratory ◽  
The University ◽  
Mathematical Curriculum

It is challenging for biomedical engineering programs to incorporate an indepth study of the systemic interdependence of cells, tissues, and organs into the rigorous mathematical curriculum that is the cornerstone of engineering education. To be sure, many biomedical engineering programs require their students to enroll in anatomy and physiology courses. Often, however, these courses tend to provide bulk information with only a modicum of live tissue experimentation. In the Electrical, Computer, and Biomedical Engineering Department of the University of Rhode Island, this issue is addressed to some extent by implementing an experiential physiology laboratory that addresses research in electrophysiology and biomechanics. The two-semester project-based course exposes the students to laboratory skills in dissection, instrumentation, and physiological measurements. In a novel approach to laboratory intensive learning, the course meets on six Sundays throughout the semester for an 8-h laboratory period. At the end of the course, students are required to prepare a two-page conference paper and submit the results to the Northeast Bioengineering Conference (NEBC) for consideration. Students then travel to the conference location to present their work. Since the inception of the course in the fall of 2003, we have collectively submitted 22 papers to the NEBC. This article will discuss the nature of the experimentation, the types of experiments performed, the goals of the course, and the metrics used to determine the success of the students and the research.

First Steps Toward Curricular Integration of Computational Tools

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Hinds ◽  
J. Sticklen ◽  
M. Urban-Lurain ◽  
M. Amey ◽  
T. Eskil
Keyword(s):  
Student Perceptions ◽  
Student Attitudes ◽  
Mechanical Engineering ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Traditional Approach ◽  
Curricular Reform ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Curricular Integration ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Introductory Computing

Calls for new paradigms for engineering education are widespread [1-3]. Yet, major curricular change is difficult to accomplish for many reasons, including having the necessary faculty buy-in [4]. Generally, efforts can be classified as either top-down/structural, in which faculty assess an entire program of study and address needs in each component before implementation begins; or bottom-up/individual, a more traditional approach that implements change in one course at a time. Faculty buy-in, consensus, and resources (unit and institutional) needed for the top-down approach make it difficult to accomplish. On the other hand, the bottom-up model is slow; the assumption that curricular reform can be affected by an accumulation of individual course adaptations is unproven, and the change goals need to have a more systemic focus. Unless the curriculum helps students integrate material across their courses, they have difficulty seeing how the material they learn in one course will connect to the next. We have performed a pair of initial studies using an evolutionary approach to curricular reform that capitalized on the strengths of both the top-down and bottom-up models, which was built on the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) reform literature. This approach developed a pairwise linkage among strategic courses in the engineering curricula to promote curricular integration and helped students see connections between their first-year courses and subsequent courses. Vertically integrated problem-based learning scenarios that link across courses are crucial to this model. Pre-reform data collected in the first study showed that students taking an introductory computing course did not see the importance of learning a particular software tool (MATLAB), because they did not see connections to their future courses. This had negative impacts on student motivation, learning, and retention. In our recent work, which was our first vertical effort, we focused on MATLAB with integration of the learning of this engineering tool in an introductory computing course with the solution of statics problems in an introductory mechanical engineering course. Our recent study set out to determine if joint team efforts would enhance student perceptions of the set learning goal for the introductory computing students while enhancing learning outcomes for both the introductory computing and introductory mechanical engineering students. The paper outlines this pairwise linkage model, the goals of this project, the framework for evaluating the linkage, and the types of data we collected as part of the evaluation effort. Results from the initial study confirmed that problem-based teamwork enhanced student attitudes towards MATLAB. We also describe how results here will enable us to reach our long-term goal of curricular integration.

Psychology and Culture: Top Down Versus Bottom Up?

PsycCRITIQUES ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 50 (19) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Cole
Keyword(s):  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up
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