Programming a UDL Strategy into BE110 Biomedical Computations

by Brian D. Plouffe

Computer programming languages are not easy to master, but that doesn’t mean they are impossible to learn, either. Whether or not programming is hard for you depends as much on your personality, as your prior computer skills. Unlike several years ago, when programming was not a common course in high school, some students do enter BE110: Biomedical Computations with programming experience. That being said, most of my students in the course are not well versed in the programming and this is a completely new experience for them.

Over the years some key skills that anecdotally indicate higher success in my course are:

1. Nearly unlimited persistence to continue trying to troubleshoot, fix and develop

2. Understanding of how things interrelate

3. Excellent attention to detail

Students who do not have these key skills can still learn how to code but do find it difficult; thus these students need multiple points of reinforcement of the concepts.

As a member of the Universal Design for Learning Community of Practice—led by the Center for Instructional Innovation—I was encouraged to consider the variability of the students in my course and what strategies I could use to address a barrier to success while maintaining academic standards. I was also asked to assess the impact on student experience and/or outcomes. This post is about one way that I applied the UDL Principle of Representation.]

Reflecting on those students who struggle to follow along with the book (which provides examples but does not really give practice) and the in-class experience, this semester I decided to provide video lectures of examples. The video lectures are a combination of PowerPoint text slides, followed by recordings of programming examples. I purposely do not edit the programming examples to illustrate my own errors and mistakes. These mistakes and errors reinforce the fact that even the instructor is not always fluent in the language – he can just fix the mistakes a bit faster. The videos give the students the ability to pause and rewind to see the details. The in-class examples and video examples are different – allowing for new experiences and troubleshooting (a.k.a. debugging) methods. The videos also provide a higher level of difficulty and more elaborate examples that cannot be well described and finished within a class period. With a final project required in the class, it is my hope that the recordings will help students go back and reinforce specific steps.

The greatest challenge has been putting together the videos in the best fashion to help the students. Merging PowerPoint text with programming to illustrate syntax has been difficult. Students commented on the usefulness of the recordings and I observed that they have asked more questions on the specifics of certain commands compared to years past. Based on student feedback, they would like to see more programming and less text in the next iteration of the recordings. So far this semester, I do feel that I, as the instructor, understand the material better as I have had to put together my thoughts more clearly and succinctly for the videos than the in-class lectures. This process has also already improved the in-class lessons as I try to do different examples and more complex tasks in class than in prior semesters. It is still not perfect but I will continue to explore better ways to deliver the material via video and look for other examples to provide my students in class and via recordings. My hope is that doing so will help students succeed who come into BE110 without prior computer programming experience or the key skills, without lowering expectations.

#biomedicalengineering #UDL