Measuring what is happening in bioengineering classrooms: an observation system to analyze teaching

For the past two years, bioengineering professors involved in an Engineering Research Center for research in bioengineering educational technologies have made a concerted effort to implement teaching innovations in their respective classrooms. These innovations seek to incorporate current knowledge on effective teaching and learning front the learning science field as presented in the 300+-page monograph of the National Research Council How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School. The question investigated here is what measurable differences are there between "traditional" and innovative "HPL-based" bioengineering class lessons, especially in terms of classroom interactions. We designed a classroom observation system to capture these differences in a measurable way. Data indicate measurable differences exist and that the instrument can be further refined to better capture these.