Presenters
Dr. Rebecca Reck, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA.
Abstract
Laboratory courses are an integral part of a STEM education; however, they often present unique physical and structural barriers to creating a fully inclusive space where students with disabilities can thrive. Combining the perspectives of the course instructor, teaching assistants, former students, and disability-inclusion frameworks, we utilized participatory action research and engineering design principles to systematically improve the sense of belonging and accessibility in a lab course.
This project centers on a required undergraduate biomedical instrumentation laboratory course at a large public university. While the core engineering content is challenging, students have also faced significant accessibility barriers, including difficulty reading labels on electronic parts, lighting issues, and restrictive lab bench layouts. To mitigate these spatial, material, and content hurdles, our research team deployed human-centered design and entrepreneurial-minded learning frameworks to evaluate the laboratory environment and iterate solutions. Following a feasibility analysis, select interventions were implemented, and feedback was gathered to measure their impact.
This session will share our multi-phase journey of blending engineering design with inclusive pedagogy to reshape a laboratory into an accessible ecosystem. After the session, attendees will be equipped with actionable methodologies to identify and eliminate disability-related barriers in their own STEM laboratory courses.
Presenter Biography
Rebecca Reck, Ph.D. Teaching Associate Professor and Associate Head of Undergraduate Programs · Department of Bioengineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Rebecca Reck is a systems engineer, Teaching Associate Professor, and Associate Head of Undergraduate Programs in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She teaches biomedical instrumentation (BIOE 414), biomedical instrumentation lab (BIOE 415), signals and systems (BIOE 205), and Introduction to Bioengineering (BIOE 100). Her research includes experiential learning, undergraduate instructional laboratories, alternative grading, and inclusive pedagogy.