Bridge-Curriculum with Rotational Experimental Projects forMultidisciplinary Courses on Biomedical Engineering
Shigehiro HASHIMOTO
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Osaka Institute of Technology, Osaka, 535-8585, Japanhashimoto@bme.oit.ac.jp http://www.oit.ac.jp/bme/~hashimoto

ABSTRACTin study backgrounds of students. The relation among courses
might be hard to understand in the curriculum, when it consistsof disorderly aggregated subject taken by each teacher of varietyof the study field.
A fusion of various systems andbackgrounds of study, on the other hand, creates a new field ofstudy in a multidisciplinary area such as “BiomedicalEngineering”.

A bridge-curriculum with rotational experimental projects has
been designed for a sustained improvement of a curriculum in a
multidisciplinary area of “Biomedical Engineering”. In thesystem, each course is taken by multiple teachers. A professor
takes charge of the part, which should be bridged to anothersubject. A constant communication between courses has beenguaranteed in the system. Each lecturer takes charge of anexperimental project. The contents of the experimental project
relates to the lecture. Each experimental project includes many
elements of learning: planning, designing, instrumentation,teamwork, analyzing, modeling, explanation, and presentation.
Each small group of students goes the rounds of every
experimental project one by one. The contents of each course
have been continuously reviewed with variation of discipline in
the system. The bridge-curriculum system works well to
improve the courses of Biomedical Engineering.

An interdisciplinary field is not a mere mixture of specialized
fields. When several fields that extend to another area areconnected to each other, they represent the academic value as aninterdisciplinary field. Aggregation of professors from various
special fields cannot make a multidisciplinary education
program. Every professor should experience multidiscipline,
and should have ability to fuse special fields. In the present
study, a challenging bridge-curriculum with rotational
experimental projects has been designed for a sustained
improvement of a curriculum in a multidisciplinary area of“Biomedical Engineering”.

Keywords: Multidisciplinary Courses, Biomedical Engineering,
Bridge-Curriculum and Rotational Experimental Project

2. BRIDGE BETWEEN COURSES
The design of courses in the bridge curriculum is as follows:

1. INTORDUCTION
1)
In a university curriculum with a credit system, each course isusually handled by one individual teacher alone. Although theuniversity teachers have their own original specialty, most ofthem have not trained how to make lessons. The licensed
degree like a high school teacher is not necessary to be aprofessor in university in Japan. In Japan, most of textbooks
taken in the courses of universities have no official approval likethose of high school, either. This is convenient to offer "Placeof a free doctrine". The cooperation between subjects is notenough, on the other hand, when each teacher discretely takes
each class by the each one's judgment. It is difficult for student
to understand the relation between subjects. This kind ofsystem cannot guarantee the sustained improvement of the entirecurriculum.
Recently, every university program is required to keep
guaranteed system to improve curriculum sustainably without
relying on "Student's initiative" in "Optional courses". The
education program should be flexibly improved in the viewpoint
not only from the program offer side but also from the student
side, to extend the goals of the program.
Because “Biomedical Engineering” is a multidisciplinary area[1], it has variations not only in teachers’ special fields but also

2)

3)

4)

5)

6)

Two or more professors take charge in every course at anomnibus style. A student meets two or more teachers inany class.
A key professor is in charge to arrange the entire syllabus
and to decide the evaluation method to give students a
credit for the subject, collecting the contents from therelated professors.
Through the communication between courses by classinspection and by discussion between professors, eachprofessor proposes the content of the contribution part tothe key professor.
A professor takes charge of the part, which should bebridged to another subject (Figs. 1-3). For example, theprofessor “B” of “Introduction to Medicine” takes chargeof a statistics part of “Medical Information Processing” andthe electrocardiogram part of “Bio-measurementEngineering”.
Several lessons are taken by guest speakers frominstitutions or from industry for the topics or for theapplication part: “Selected Topics”, for example (Fig. 3).
To provide the multi-learning, all teachers participate withthe omnibus style in the courses, which relate to every
field: “Introduction to Medical Engineering”, “Ethics inEngineering“, “Technological History “, and “English forEngineering“.

4)(Prof. A & Prof. B)
Bio-measurement(Prof. B & Prof. C)
Engineering
Introduction toMedicine
Bio-systems
Medical Information
Engineering
Processing(Prof. C & Prof. D)(Prof. F & Prof. B)
Time course
Fig. 1: Bridge between courses.

Bio-measurement
Engineering(Prof. A)
Unit,Sensor,Amplifier,Error, etc.
Electrocardiogram(Prof. B)
15 Lessons for one Lecture

Introduction to Medicine(Prof. B)
Pathology,Internal Medicine,Surgery,
Diagnosis, etc.
Engineering & Medicine(Prof. C)

Fig. 2: Bridge (arrow) content between courses.

7)

In projects for multiple hours, students are divided into
small groups, and one professor is charged to the serial
classes of several hours, while the groups sometimes
amalgamate to prevent being biased according to theindividual professor: “Seminar”, and “Bachelor Thesis (Fig.
3)”, for example.

3. BRIDGE BETWEEN ROTATIONAL EXPERIMENTAL
PROJECT AND LECTURE
The system of “Rotational Experimental Projects” enables
polishing the ability of design, communication, presentation,and teamwork, simultaneously, as well as supplying the advisorysystem for students’ learning.
1)

2)

3)

Each lecturer takes charge of an experimental project(Experiment of Biology, Experiment of Chemistry,Experiment of Medical engineering in Fig. 3). The
contents of the experimental project relates to that oflecture.
Each experimental project includes many elements oflearning: planning, designing, instrumentation, teamwork,analyzing, modeling, explanation, and presentation.
Each small group of students goes the rounds of every
experimental project one by one.

The rotational experimental project provides a good
opportunity to touch materials and to meet with applicationof fundamental subjects, which have been learned in thelecture.

4. DISCUSSIONInterviews to students, to their parents and to industry show thefollowing
advantages
anddisadvantages
ofthebridge-curriculum system.
Advantages:
1) The system gives a chance to divert motivation from one
object to another, which is useful to refresh and inspire
students. Compatibility between a student and the contentof the subject can be distinguished from that between astudent and the professor individuality. Students canselect professor, when they complain to the contents of thesubject. Professor can collect opinion from students about
the contents charged by another professor.
2) The bridging-charge system guarantees the daily discussion
among subjects.
3) A constant exchange between subjects is guaranteed.
Cooperation with other subjects can be considered at anytime. Scheduled lecture is requested.
4) Evaluation: discussion on student achievement level amongrelated subjects is guaranteed. A self-righteous evaluation
to students can be prevented by being checked by anotherprofessor.
5) The bias, which depends on professor individuality, can becompensated by another professor. The improvement of
the content of the subject can be distinguished from that ofthe professor ability.
6) With the system, every subject can easily include
specialized topics by a guest lecturer, which inspirestudents.
7) Because every professor takes part in the class of allsemesters, he can always check students’ achievement
according to their learning history.
8) Because two or more professors recognize the outline of
the class, a lecturer at any class can be easily replaced byanother professor in a case of an accident. The lessonschedule becomes flexible independent of teacher'sconvenience.
9) The system breaks the wall between subjects, and enhances
the exchange of the content between them10) The system breaks the traditional style of “one teacher onone subject”.
11) The system creates a new curriculum system, as well as a
new academic system.
Disadvantages:
1) Interrupt the story of each course.
2) Students have to follow the change of the lecture styleduring one course.
3) Scheduled lecture is requested.
4) The management of the class schedule becomescomplicated for faculties.
5) The class schedule becomes complicated for professors.
6) Alternation of professors might make it difficult for student
to understand the continuousness of the content in thecourse.
“Plan, Do, Check, Action (PDCA)” cycle to improve acurriculum works with the class inspection and the meeting on
the course content among faculties. The regular meeting,however, is not enough to support the cycle. Daily discussion
among faculties is preferred to support the cycle. Beforeintroduction of the system, the class inspection and the meetingon the course content tended to be skipped.

been designed for a sustained improvement of a curriculum in a
multidisciplinary area of “Biomedical Engineering”. Thesystem works well to improve the curriculum of amultidisciplinary area.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Although it is the best way for students to select one from two or
more classes prepared for each subject, a department does nothave allowance to prepare such a huge amount of classes:
neither enough space, nor enough professors. Students tend toselect subjects not due to the contents but due to professor’sindividuality. The subject does not depend too much on
individuality of one professor in the bridging-charge system.
Before introduction of the system, the improvement of thecontent of the subject can hardly be distinguished from that ofthe professor ability. Monotonous contents of basic subject canbe changed to exciting contents by variation of professors’
specialty background. It is easy for a professor to takecooperation with another university under flexible classschedule in the system. Cooperation between universities isimportant especially in a multidisciplinary field.
The course contents have been continuously reviewed with thedesigned system. Following the students’ opinion about theweakness of the area in biology and in life science, fields on the
biological cell technology, gene technology, and the protein
technology have been added to the curriculum [2-4]. The
special subjects have been categorized into two groups: “lifescience” and “medical engineering”, which cover the wide
multidisciplinary field. The basic part has been supported withnatural science subjects. “Analytical Chemistry” has been
added following the opinion of industry.
“Ethics”,“Technological History”, and “Language”, have been positioned
as compulsory subjects, which are key subjects for every
discipline. The serial subjects of small group activity (tenpeople or less) in “Seminars” and in “Rotational ExperimentalProjects” from first to last semester enable polishing the abilityof design, communication, presentation, and teamwork,
simultaneously, as well as supplying the advisory system forstudents’ learning. Enough contents are kept in the courses tomaintain relations to the license of the high-school teacher andof the clinical engineer, following to parents’ opinion. Thebridging-charge system works well to improve the curriculum of
Biomedical Engineering.

5. CONCLUSION
A bridge-curriculum with rotational experimental projects hasAuthors are thankful to Prof. Robert A. Linsenmaier ofNorthwestern University, to Prof. Richard L. Magin of
University of Illinois at Chicago, Prof. Dorian Liepmann ofUniversity of California Berkeley, Prof. Gerald Saidel of Case
Western Reserve University, Prof. Bruce Milthorpe of
University of New South Wales, Prof. Hans Weber of Aachen
University of Applied Sciences, Prof. Kou Imachi of Universityof Tokyo, Prof. Teruo Okano of Tokyo Women’s MedicalUniversity, Prof. Kazunori Kataoka of University of Tokyo, Prof.
Mitsuo Umezu of Waseda University, and Prof. Koji Ikuta ofNagoya University for discussion about our project.

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