Work in progress: A case study of integrating inclusive engineering skills into a middle-years biomedical engineering course via model-based reasoning

Abstract

As engineering educators prepare increasingly diverse cohorts of students to tackle complex global challenges, the need for engineers with inclusive mindsets has become more apparent. One aspect of inclusion is the awareness of our potential for biases in the models we create of the world -- engineering models that go on to influence the technologies we produce. This paper presents a work-in-progress case study of an intervention in a middle-years analytical course with a heavy focus on mathematical modeling. The intervention is designed to make students aware of biases in model base learning, their own tendencies towards these kinds of biases, and the sorts of impacts these biases can have on real populations. An important component of the intervention is that it is embedded into the teaching of analytical content, rather than being an additional unit on inclusion that remains separate from quantitative work.