Translational medicine (TM) is an interdisciplinary branch of biomedicine that bridges the gap from bench-to-bedside to improve global health. Fundamental TM skills include interdisciplinary collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and creative problem-solving (4Cs). TM is currently limited in undergraduate biomedical education programs,…

Our study investigates the effect of hybrid courses and reading scientific articles on scientific literacy of biomedical engineering students. Participants included about 100 undergraduate and graduate students who participated in one or two hybrid courses. Our research goal was to study the effect of reading scientific articles and participating…

Teaching soft skills like team dynamics and critical thinking in content-heavy higher education curriculum can be challenging. Employing educational escape rooms is a novel game-based learning strategy in various disciplines, including health sciences. Escape rooms provide the opportunity for a group to work together as they solve puzzles within a…

While biomedical and life science research have embraced interdisciplinarity as the means to solving pressing 21st century complex challenges, interdisciplinarity in undergraduate education has been more difficult to implement. As a consequence, disciplinary rather than interdisciplinary capstones have become ubiquitous. Disciplinary capstones are…

This paper describes the adaptation of a flipped Biomedical Electronics course with laboratories to remote learning at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. In class collaborative work on problem sets was replaced by group work (4-5 students) in Zoom breakout sessions. When the groups assembled at random for each class had sufficiently progressed on…

In this article, Fishbone-based advanced computational thinking (FACT) pedagogy is proposed by fusing fishbone pedagogy and computational thinking pedagogy for enhancing teaching-learning process while teaching engineering and science courses, for engineering and science students respectively. The proposed FACT pedagogy has been implemented using…

A chemistry course designed as an elective for chemistry, biochemistry, biology, and pharmaceutical science majors is described. The course is designed for second- through fourth-year undergraduate students. The prerequisite is first-semester, second-year undergraduate organic chemistry with the second semester of the organic sequence as a…

In the spring of 2020, brick and mortar colleges had to abruptly adapt to the reality of COVID-19 and transition to entirely online environments in a manner of weeks. This required a rapid (< 2 weeks) acquisition of knowledge and flexibility in using technology, most commonly Zoom. Upon completion of the semester, and after debriefing with…

Collaborative biostatistics is the creative application of statistical tools to biomedical problems. The relatively modest literature about the traits of effective collaborative biostatisticians focuses on four core competencies: (a) technical and analytical; (b) substance-matter knowledge; (c) communication; and (d) problem solving and problem…

Recent advances in teaching, many of which incorporate elements of active learning, seek to provide students with learning experiences indicative of real-world problem solving. Problem-based learning (PBL) is one form of active learning that challenges students to address open-ended problems. In this work, we evaluate the efficacy of PBL in…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between students' patterns of reflective thinking and their performance in solving design problems. Reflective thinking is a critical element in the process of solving ill-defined design problems. Many educators are dedicated to finding ways to promote students' reflection. Yet few…

Metacognitive skills can have enormous benefits for students within engineering courses. Unfortunately, these metacognitive skills tend to fall outside the content area of most courses, and consequently, they can often be neglected in instruction. In this context, previous research on concept mapping as a teaching strategy points to meaningful…

Enzyme kinetics is an essential part of biochemistry programs, which have been gaining importance in recent years for their applications in biotechnology and biomedicine. The teaching and learning of these issues has been traditionally hampered by difficulties that stem mainly from the dynamic and mathematical nature of the topic and the…

Learning the basic competencies of critical thinking are very important in the education of any young scientist, and teachers must be prepared to help students develop a valuable set of analytic tools. In my experience, this is best achieved by encouraging students to study areas with little scientific consensus, such as the control mechanisms of…

Challenge-based teaching facilitates students' simultaneous development of content mastery and strategies for applying technical knowledge innovatively. The University of Texas at Austin Department of Biomedical Engineering has offered a challenge-based course on biotransport as an accelerated study-abroad learning experience in Cambridge,…