Studio learning is an alternative to the conventional way of education engineers: a long lecture, followed by a recitation, followed by a lab experiment, says Foulds. Instead, a professor using the studio method starts class with a mini-lecture that touches upon the assigned reading, followed by a studio exercise that is conducted during the class period. Students divide into teams to work on the exercises, which are more open-ended than traditional lab experiments. The professor and the teaching assistant stay with the students in the studio, offering coaching and mentoring. It was first used in architecture schools, Foulds notes, but he adapted and appropriated it for engineering.
One recent afternoon in Foulds’ freshman design class, students worked happily in teams, building surgical robots. Foulds darted from team to team, coaching the students on their robots. The class was alive with the hum of vivid discussions. The mock surgeries, performed on the pasta and other edibles, teach students how to use technology to assist surgeons. The students must first design prototypes of robots that will perform certain tasks, such as reattach the tip of a hot dog, which simulates surgery on an amputated finger. They then build the robots using LEGO Mindstorm kits, which have about 1,000 pieces – with gears, levers, motors and sensors.
“Surgical robots will play a critical role in the future of medicine,” Foulds says, “allowing surgeons to not only be more precise, but to routinely perform operations from remote locations.”
Studio learning promotes interaction among students and professors. In contrast to traditional lectures, studio sessions allow professors to mentor or coach the students. Biomedical engineering is the most interdisciplinary of the engineering fields, since in four years biomed majors must master aspects not only of mechanical, electrical and chemical engineering, but also of physiology, biology and medicine.
“The studio classes are ideally suited for interdisciplinary learning,” says Foulds, “since the experiments we give them force our students to draw upon many fields.”
The studios, also, are equipped with sophisticated equipment. The two studios are wired for the Internet and multimedia equipment. They are furnished with ten PC-based lab stations that serve groups of students. The studios have the equipment used by biomedical engineers, including amplifiers, oscilloscopes, power supplies, function generators and multi-meters.
Oftentimes the studio classes are taught by two professors. Bruno Mantilla, a special lecturer of biomedical engineering, teaches the freshman design class with Foulds. Before coming to NJIT, Mantilla worked for 15 years as a neurosurgeon. He knows, from experience, how engineers can help doctors develop new medical technology; and he knows how to teach students those techniques.
“Children are naturally inquisitive, creative,” says Mantilla. “They ask questions. They explore the world with their hands. Yet too often when they get older, and start school, they are told, ‘Stop asking questions, stop touching and start learning,’ But that attitude kills learning. In our studio classes we ask our students to be creative, to drop all their pre-conceived notions of what engineering is and to come up with new ideas. It’s really about creativity, which college students naturally possess. It just needs to be tapped. That’s what the studio method does.”
Text for this article comes from a NJIT press release.