Authored by six current and former Biomedical Engineering (BME) Master's Program Directors, this article aims to summarize the types of BME master's programs that are offered in the U.S., delve into the value of BME master's programs, and reveal concerns of BME master's students and directors that are exacerbated among international and…

Biomedical engineering is a broad and interdisciplinary field that prepares graduates for a variety of careers across multiple career sectors. Given this breadth, undergraduate degree programs often have formal or informal opportunities for students to further specialize within the biomedical engineering major to develop skills in subdisciplines…

This ethnographic study investigates the teaching and learning of the design process in biomedical engineering classrooms. Through classroom fieldwork, we examine how faculty and students conceptualize and implement the design process, focusing on its linear teaching methods, the abstraction of users, and the reinforcement of expertise…

This exploratory sequential mixed-methods case study explores the relationship between perceived self-efficacy and faculty mentorship with biomedical sciences graduate students. The intent of the study was to understand the extent at which faculty mentorship contributes to self-efficacy development in the population of biomedical sciences doctoral…

High-impact practices (HIPs) are educational practices that foster student success. HIPs have not been widely used in cancer education and research despite the need for students to develop key transferable skills and cultivate social responsibility. Our study addresses this need by implementing four community-based learning HIPs within the context…

Improv activities have been shown to increase student engagement, enjoyment, and confidence in higher education classrooms. However, there are few examples of STEM courses designed with dedicated and repeated time allotted to improv activities. We sought to determine the effects of scheduled improv activities on engagement and learning in an…

Problem-based learning (PBL) is a teaching technique in which students' learning is conveyed using real-world problems. However, the implementation of PBL is confronted with several challenges, namely the involvement of students, the definition of the teacher's role, and the development of effective assessment mechanisms. This paper describes and…

Isoenzymes are variant forms of the same enzyme activity that exhibits different tissue distribution. When cells are damaged, intracellular content leaks into the blood stream, making them potential biochemical markers. Undergraduate health sciences students are expected to interpret laboratory findings of serum levels of biochemical markers and…

Successful retention of STEM majors that then successfully transition into the U.S. STEM workforce is a major challenge for institutions of higher education. The present work represents a quality improvement study of a custom-designed professional development course for undergraduate students characterized by an innovative integration of workforce…

In an effort to better engage biomedical engineering technology (BMET) students with material covered in lectures and to connect them with their future careers, we created interactive 360° videos in typical BMET workplaces. Students watched the videos using virtual reality (VR) headsets and reflected on the experience. Students commented that the…

Artificial intelligence (AI) in programming teaching is something that still has to be explored, since in this area assessment tools that allow grading the students work are the most common ones, but there are not many tools aimed toward providing feedback to the students in the process of creating their program. In this work a small sized…

Dimensionality reduction techniques are essential in analyzing large 'omics' datasets in biochemistry and molecular biology. Principal component analysis, t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding, and uniform manifold approximation and projection are commonly used for data visualization. However, these methods can be challenging for students…

The high cost of establishing a cell and tissue culture facility has denied students an opportunity to practice proper aseptic techniques during their studies. An in-house application named AsepticTech Virtual Reality (VR) was developed to simulate a cell and tissue culture facility for students to train their aseptic techniques virtually.…

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…

A synergetic approach to combine service learning at the university level with a high school outreach program is described. A holistic view is presented by discussing the importance of outreach and service learning, survey results, and outcomes. Overall, it was found that the unique program increased the self-efficacy (belief about one's…