Learning How to Learn Medical Signal Processing: a Case Study

Abstract

Elements of modern teaching and learning environments such as Active Collaborative Learning (ACL) and Project Based Learning PBL) are being widely adopted in universities as powerful teaching tools. By design, these tools require the actual immersion of students in learning activities. Furthermore, they emphasize the key responsibilities students have to assume towards their own education. While the majority of universities are taking efforts to train teachers to fulfill teachers' roles, it is rare to find universities where students are trained to fulfill theirs. In this paper we report our experience in designing a course on Biomedical Signal processing based on the concepts of action leaning in an ACL/PBL framework. In particular, we investigate the importance of formally educating our students on modern best practices of university education. Our results indicate the importance of such training and supports the hypothesis that training students on how to learn is an important, but often underemphasized phenomenon.