Cross-disciplinary approach to developing challenge-based instruction

This paper describes our cross-disciplinary collaboration to design and implement educational materials in the domain of biotechnology. We designed our course activities to follow a challenged-based model of learning and constructed our learning environment to align with current theories of how people learn. The nature of our work was cross-disciplinary since it involved applying educational principles to a complex engineering domain. In this sense engineering faculty worked closely with education faculty to create enhanced learning materials for biomedical engineering education. We describe the process we followed to develop these materials and highlight several components that led to the success of our collaborative effort. In addition we describe our course materials, the reformed learning environment, and present student feedback from the initial implementation.