Providing an Enriching Learning Experience for Underresourced Academic Programs Through MOOCIBL

Biomedical engineering (BME) programs and experiences can provide students with some of the most immersive opportunities available in industry and research. However, the cost to start and maintain a distinct BME program can prove to be a major obstacle for under-resourced institutions. BME programs require a variety of lab spaces, technical expertise, and administrative support, all of which may not be immediately attainable by smaller and under-resourced academic institutions. One way to support BME programs at smaller institutions is by establishing collaborative relationships with other institutions through synchronous online classrooms. While it is common to see multi-institutional collaboration on research efforts, collaborative education can provide benefits for all participating institutions. Instructors at smaller schools often possess greater teaching expertise than their counterparts at research institutions and adding a second instructor also broadens the technical expertise available to students. Large research institutions often have cutting-edge labs and equipment which are available for student use. In a collaborative course, students benefit from the combined resources of both institutions as well as cross-pollination between the unique student cultures and perspectives of each participating school. The essential goal of this unique classroom experience is to provide an enriching learning experience, which can be highly successful within a multi-institutional learning environment. To allow students and instructors from multiple universities to simultaneously participate in a shared Cardiovascular Engineering course, the MOOCIBL (Massive Open Online Course for Innovation-Based Learning) platform is used as the central hub of learning and collaboration. MOOCIBL is a unique learning management system where students define and track their learning goals while anonymously giving and receiving peer feedback. This paper focuses on a particular set of students and their experience in a Cardiovascular Engineering course that uses the MOOCIBL platform. These students are enrolled in a small, liberal arts institution without a fully established engineering program. Students were qualitatively interviewed to gather reflective thoughts on developing expectations and motivations for taking this elective course and how their learning was affected during this unique opportunity to learn and engage with students from other institutions.