An Innovative Approach to Undergraduate Education From Bioengineering

Educating the next generation of scholars is a core responsibility and commitment of our department. Bioengineering professor Dr. Caroline Cvetkovic is advancing this mission in innovative ways. In her course, BIOE 360: Transport and Flow in Bioengineering—which explores heat and mass transfer in biological and bioengineered systems—Dr. Cvetkovic and her students have developed a new approach to gathering and acting on student feedback in real time throughout the academic year.

In Summer 2024, Cvetkovic and her research group conducted a series of focus groups intended to solicit student feedback, aiming to improve the course based on their recommendations. Their preliminary findings were recently published in the Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), in a paper co-authored by Sarah Meece, Trisha Patnaik, and Divya Bendigeri- all students in bioengineering and members of Cvetkovic’s research group. The effort represents innovation and a student-centered approach to curriculum design for a technical engineering course.

Over a dozen students from the Spring 2024 cohort of BIOE 360 volunteered their time towards the focus groups. The students took a pre-focus group survey to establish their work styles and general feelings about the course, and completed a post-focus group survey about the effectiveness of the sessions. Participant and researcher Sarah Meece explained: “Unlike traditional anonymous end-of-class surveys, the focus group allowed for in-depth, real-time discussions among students who had completed the course. Importantly, students were also asked to propose specific changes, giving the feedback process a solution-focused structure rather than simply collecting critiques.” Meece also noted how well the students responded to being participants in improving the course. “They were enthusiastic and deeply engaged. Many reported that they valued the opportunity to make meaningful suggestions. One student noted that hearing others’ feedback triggered their own thoughts and ideas, leading to a more inclusive and participatory discussion.”

Engaging the students in the feedback process revealed aspects of the class that the current cohort found challenging. The course was fast-paced, and some learners had trouble keeping up with in-class practice problems. Others desired to better understand how the concepts that they were learning applied more broadly to bioengineering. Students also wanted to interact with a broader range of peers throughout the semester. “While some of us thought rotating groups might be disruptive, many students preferred it,” said Patnaik. “[Students were] saying it gave them exposure to diverse problem-solving styles and perspectives.” Patnaik also noted how the diverse group valued the flexibility to be creative. “We noticed this when they were coming up with their own analogies or designing example problems. I hadn’t anticipated just how important that sense of commitment and ownership over their learning experience would be.”

In response to the feedback, Cvetkovic and her team prioritized including more real-world scenarios that illustrated each chapter’s main concepts. The lesson plans were also updated in the Spring 2025 course offering to include hands-on learning activities, such as demonstrations of natural convection using heated beakers and food coloring or freezing water in different containers, allowing students to see how properties like surface area and volume affected the time it took biological materials to freeze. Another activity allowed students to move around the classroom to predict models of molecular diffusion and dispersion. These activities let students visualize the material and understand its effects on the real world. Additional changes, such as adjusting classroom layout, enhancing active learning structure, and continuing to incorporate feedback are also in the works. Cvetkovic added that “the BIOE 360 course staff will continue to act on the valuable feedback that we’ve received, while tracking specific changes that make the greatest impact in students’ understanding and experience.” This approach is also being considered for adoption in other courses within the department.

Another positive aspect of the focus group was providing the opportunity for students to have a voice. Participating in and shaping the class gave them a sense of ownership over their learning. “In the focus groups, multiple voices were able to be heard,” said author Divya Bendigeri. “Many students mentioned that the focus groups were a great channel to get perspectives from students in a group setting, which can help improve the course further.”

The authors presented their findings in a paper titled “Work in Progress: Using Student Focus Groups to Improve an Undergraduate Bioengineering Transport Course” to a wider audience at the ASEE’s Illinois-Indiana Section Conference in April 2025. Meece saw the presentation as a valuable and rewarding experience. “It provided a chance to engage with faculty and education researchers who shared a deep interest in equity-focused and student-driven approaches to engineering education.” The feedback they received was overwhelmingly positive. “I was generally surprised by how interested the audience was in hearing directly from undergraduates,” said Patnaik, who presented alongside Meece. “Several faculty members approached us afterward to express appreciation for incorporating student voices into course design, not just as data points but as co-creators of change.” The experience also helps build student skills in communication, research design, and educational leadership, which are areas that often fall outside traditional engineering training.

“I am really proud of my lab group (all juniors and seniors in BIOE) for developing methods to analyze the data, secure funding, write a conference paper, and present the project to a professional audience of engineering educators,” said professor Cvetkovic. “None of the student researchers had experience in these areas before, yet they pushed themselves and worked together as a team.”

Training the next generation of leaders is the most important role of the Department of Bioengineering at The Grainger College of Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Though the coursework can be intimidating, professor Cvetkovic and her students have developed a model of incorporating student feedback and integrating their suggestions to facilitate better learning for all. To enhance this initiative, Cvetkovic will join professor Holly Golecki (Bioengineering) and Wayne Chang (Aerospace Engineering) to develop a Reflective Teaching Toolkit to foster growth and innovation in the classroom. This project will be funded by a Provost’s Initiative on Teaching Advancement (PITA) grant for 2025-2026.