VaNTH-An Engineering Research Center Aimed at Bioengineering Education

The Vanderbilt-Northwestern-TexasHarvard/MIT Engineering Research Center for Bioengineering Educational Technologies (VaNTH) is an ERC aimed at developing a new approach to bioengineering education. The goal of the VaNTH ERC is to integrate learning science, learning technology, assessment and the domain subjects of bioengineering into a new paradigm for the education of bioengineers. VaNTH has formulated concepts from learning science into a fundamental hypothesis--the “How People Learn Framework” (HPL). Achievements of the center include the following: 1. the identification of principles based on HPL that allow the design of effective instructional modules; 2. the development of principles for the evaluation of effectiveness of VaNTH instructional systems; 3. testing of new materials has occurred in 55 courses with a student population of 2,123 students with diverse backgrounds; 4. new technologies for interactive presentation of bioengineering to students, and for designing, assembling and delivering a range of technology-based instructional materials. Index Terms – ERC, adaptive expertise, bioengineering education INNOVATION IN ENGINEERING Recently, there has been a significant concern expressed by academic, scientific, business and governmental leaders regarding the ability of the United States to compete in a global market [1,2,3]. A persistent theme in these discussions is the role and importance of scientific and engineering education in making the US workforce competitive. Issues regarding “innovation” are prominent in these discussions. as well as other important characteristics. A key question is: How can these concepts be effectively designed into the engineering education system? Learning scientists have conceptualized many of these ideas as “adaptive expertise.” Clough et al.[2] emphasize that the “Engineer of 2020” should be characterized by strong analytical skills, practical ingenuity, creativity, high ethical standards, dynamism, agility, resilience, flexibility and abilities for lifelong learning