The goal of this project is to develop
a module that describes blood-gas exchange in the lung. This includes
macroscopic and microscopic descriptions of gas flow, blood flow, convective gas
exchange and heat exchange in the lung. Students should have taken courses in
one or more of the following areas: transport phenomena, heat transfer, fluid
mechanics, or mass transfer. A physiology course would also be beneficial.
Project #1. This project involves looking at evaluation of design projects.
This would include developing a scheme to classify the project type (ie:
product or process or system or ...) and to develop a grading scheme for both
the paper and the final poster session that more accurately reflects the type
and level of effort required for that particular type.
Project #2. An additional or subproject would be to develop PowerPoint
presentations for all the chapters in the new textbook for use in teaching.
Other specific topics would also need to be developed for classroom use, such
as tutorial modules for designsafe.
Project #1 - Web (and ASP?) programming of interactive aspects of currently
fairly static content of an ultrasound imaging tutorial. The student
involved in this project will develop and practice programming skills, utilize
learning technologies, and gain a basic understanding of ultrasound imaging.
Project #2 - Development of hands on learning activities for x-ray based
imaging techniques, especially for computed tomography. The student
working on this project will develop fun activities using common household
objects to help learners understand projections versus tomograms and how
computed tomography (CT) images are created.
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Biotechnology - Gulnur Birol
PROJECT #1:
We are developing an educational tool for biotechnology containing a set of
challenges/ objectives that would associate with the How People Learn (HPL)
framework. We are closely working with students, learning scientists,
technology, domain and assessment experts here at Northwestern University,
Biomedical Engineering Department. An extensive preliminary work has been
carried out and the first version of the module has been tested in
Bioprocess Technology Class in Fall 2001 to teach microbial kinetics. The
educational module has different activities/challenges with varying
complexity. As an undergraduate student, your task will be to work with
faculty to analyze assessment data collected during Fall 2001, identify and
develop materials that define the learning sequences for these specific
challenges. This will include but is not limited to literature survey,
developing simple mathematical models of microbial growth, substrate
utilization and product formation if necessary, participating in the design
and implementation of this module. Competency in any programming languages
is required. There will be
considerable opportunities to perform computer programming in Matlab, C, cgi,
Java, etc.
PROJECT #2: We are developing a new module
for biotechnology centered on SuperPro Designer ®
(http://www.intelligen.com/) to our course. This
is a commercial software product for simulation, computer-aided process
design, environmental impact assessment, and project economic evaluation.
We are going to develop a module containing a set of challenges/objectives
that would associate with the How People Learn (HPL) framework collaborating
with learning scientists here at NWU. The
educational module will have different challenges with varying complexity.
As an undergraduate student, your task will be to work with faculty to
identify/develop materials that define the learning sequences for these
specific challenges. This will include but is not limited to literature
survey, learning to use the simulator, developing simple mathematical models
for downstream processes such as extraction etc. if necessary, and
participating in the design and implementation of this module. There will be
considerable opportunities to perform computer programming in Matlab, C, cgi,
Java, etc.
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- VaNTH K-12 Outreach:
Instructional Materials Development - Kanter
The
goal of VaNTH-NU’s “Outreach: Instructional Materials Design” work is
to apply new ideas in learning theory and novel learning technologies to
improve middle and high school students' science content learning and
problem solving skills.
We design curricula or modules in which middle or high school
students apply their learning to completing a challenging project derived
from authentic bioengineering applications.
REU students will work with learning sciences and engineering faculty
and middle and high school teachers to develop, test, and evaluate these
unique instructional materials.
We have several on-going outreach projects in
biomedical engineering: 1) a curriculum in which middle school life science
students learn human biology and physiology by redesigning their school
lunch choices, 2) a curriculum (a collaboration with Chicago’s Museum of
Science and Industry) in which high school biology students learn cellular
and molecular biology and cardiovascular wellness by designing solutions for
coronary artery disease, and 3) a module in which middle school science
students learn engineering design, physics, human biology, and careers in
bioengineering by designing an artificial limb.
As an undergraduate student working on one or more of
these projects, you could expect to work with a multidisciplinary research
team of educational researchers, teachers from Chicago's public schools,
engineers, and learning technologists.
You would likely be involved in many different aspects of the work:
- Instructional
Materials Design - REU students may develop experiments or
investigations or learning technologies for a particular curriculum or
module. Designing such
materials often provides opportunities to do anything and everything
from building novel measurement devices to writing lesson plans.
- Education
research – The principled improvement of our materials is based on
qualitative and quantitative assessment.
We look at conceptual changes in students’ thinking and/or
changes in what goes on in the classroom (from both teachers’ and
students’ perspectives) and iteratively redesign our materials
accordingly. REU students may document and analyze classroom
conversations and student-generated artifacts, investigate what students
know, and help redesign
instructional materials accordingly.
- Curriculum
research and design – We also look at what types of curricular
materials and learning technologies are most readily adopted by
teachers. REU students
working in this area may be developing a new generation of instructor
manuals.
- Joint BME/CS - Walsh, Riesbeck and Kofi
REU Students Needed to Assist
with Development of Bioengineering Learning Technology Module
We are looking for
undergraduate students who have laboratory skills. The REU students will
interact significantly with students, post-doc's, and faculty in the Schools
of Engineering and Education at Northwestern in the development of an
educational software system. A version of the system was developed in 2001
and tested in a dialysis laboratory. During the summer of 2002, the inquiry
system will be further developed, implemented for at least one specific
laboratory, and documented. The goal of the module is the development of an
intelligent system that can assist students by holding a partially Socratic
dialog with students in a bioengineering laboratory environment. The
ultimate goal is the development of a system that can be readily adapted for
a huge range of laboratory environments and thus used in educational
environments world-wide.
Harvard/MIT
Bioengineering Ethics
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Stephanie J. Bird, PhD
MIT
Integrating Ethical Considerations into Engineering Subjects/Courses
Successful science and engineering professionals must be aware of and
sensitive to the professional standards and ethical values inherent in the
practice of research. These professional standards and values reflect both
the mores of the scientific community (e.g., allocation of credit,
responsibility of authors) and of society as a whole (e.g., the humane
treatment of research subjects). This information is not generally
explicitly taught as part of the research process and the community has
become aware of the need to address the responsible conduct of research
explicitly. The ethics domain of the VaNTH ERC is assisting and
facilitating faculty at the Consortium schools with the integration of
ethical considerations into the curriculum of existing and new subjects.
Learning Technology
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Aziz Boxwala, MBBS
HST - Decision Systems Group, Brigham and Women's Hospital
Taxonomy and Taxonomy Software Tools for Describing Biomedical Engineering
Curricula The VANTH ERC (
www.vanth.org)
is conducting research on Bioengineering educational technologies. As part
of this project we are developing a taxonomy of subjects in
Bioengineering. The taxonomy will facilitate the description of curricula
in a standard manner and can also be used as a vocabulary for indexing of
learning material. We need to implement software tools for editing and
browsing the taxonomy. The tools will be implemented in Java and on the
web. We
need a UROP to help with the implementation of the tools. You must have at
least some of the following skills: Java/C++ programming, development of
dynamic web-sites, database design, and knowledge representation. The
project provides you with an opportunity to learn about modern knowledge
representation approaches, software engineering tools and techniques, and
should give you an overview of topics in Biomedical Engineering.