ABSTRACT
Cultivating a sense of belonging can be challenging in online contexts as well as for underrepresented students in engineering education. This study used a mixed methods sequential explanatory design to understand underrepresented students' experiences in a Canadian first-year course. Taking place during remote delivery due to COVID-19, we surveyed students about constructs related to belonging and team experience, finding significant differences between men and women as well as between the majority social group (white and South Asian men) and their peers in terms of whether they valued the diversity of the teaching assistant (TA) team, and whether the course contributed to their sense of belonging in engineering. Follow up interviews shed light on some of the differences in students' perceptions and experiences based on gender and ethnicity, and have implications for inclusive teaching strategies in first-year courses, in particular related to designing team activities and providing supports for peer-TA-instructor interactions.
ABSTRACT
Many Canadian engineering faculties employ a first-year design course. Offering a large-scale, realistic and valuable design experience to students beginning to learn about engineering is challenging. In 2020 the Faculty of Engineering (University of Alberta) introduced a new first-year design course for 1200+ qualifying year students: Introduction to Engineering Design, Communication, and Profession. The course is founded on four principles: engineering design is a distinguishing and core feature of engineering practice and education, transdisciplinary engineering design has a common process, sustainability is a key societal goal and integral to engineering design, and the communication of the evaluated design proposition is a necessary step towards design implementation. The course objectives are to introduce first-year students to the transdisciplinary design process and demonstrate differences between the engineering and traditional science programs. The course design had four additional requirements: (1) meet the needs of all our programs;(2) be taught by instructors from each of our disciplines (supporting transdisciplinarity and discipline ownership);(3) engage applied learning;(4) use the design process to solve a community-based problem. The course implementation was supported by two co-lead instructors, the continued involvement of a third design instructor (course co-creator), eight guest instructors (representing all Faculty programs and the provincial professional association), and ten teaching assistants from both engineering and industrial design programs. All course materials (lecture slides, online resources, project descriptions, assessments) were developed in advance. Even as we were implementing this new course, we were collecting midterm feedback, reflecting on and adjusting the course in real-time, and planning the next iteration using a continual improvement process. At the time of original submission, the aim of this paper was to provide insight into the course development, implementation and lessons learned through its delivery. However, with the COVID-19 pandemic, many more challenges faced the instructional team;these are also detailed in this paper.
ABSTRACT
Background & Aim: The Cellular Immuno-Therapy for COVID-19 related ARDS (CIRCA-19) was a phase 1, single site, dose escalation trial using a 3+3+3 design to determine the safety and maximum feasible tolerated dose of intravenously delivered, freshly cultured UC-MSCs. Nine patients, each receiving repeated unit doses of UC-MSCs over 3 consecutive days, were enrolled into 3 dose panels: Panel 1: 25×106 cells/dose (cumulative dose: 75×106 MSCs);Panel 2: 50×106 cells/dose (cumulative dose: 150×106 MSCs);Panel 3: up to 90×106 cells/dose (cumulative dose: 270×106 MSCs). Methods, Results & Conclusion: UC-MSCs were isolated from cords of healthy term pregnancies delivered by C-section. Cords were mechanically and enzymatically digested, and UC-MSCs were propagated in xeno-free conditions for 2 weeks prior to cryopreservation in a cord specific cell bank. One fully validated cell bank was used in CIRCA-19 that was free of adventitious agents (HBV, HCV, HSV1/2, Parvo B19 and Retroviruses), had high viability (>95%) and MSC identity with positive expression (>95%) of CD73, CD90 and CD105 and negative expression (<5%) of CD14, CD19, CD34, CD45 and HLA-DR. UC-MSCs also demonstrated high proliferative capacity (EdU+ >45%;DBT = 22h) and enhanced IDO expression (ΔΔCq?>18) when treated with IFN-γ. For the final product, UC-MSCs were thawed, plated and cultured for 24 to 120 h before harvesting to produce a batch of the final drug product formulated as 2.5×106 fresh UC-MSCs/mL suspended in PlasmaLyte A containing 5% Human Albumin, to be infused within 48h. Batches were tested for viability, endotoxin level, ACE-2 expression, tissue factor activity, sterility and mycoplasma. Sixteen batches of UC-MSCs were produced for a total of 41 cell doses (16 doses of 25M;13 doses of 50M;12 doses of 90M cells each). Twenty-seven of the 41 doses (9 doses of 25M, 50M and 90M cells each) were used to treat trial participants. The remaining doses were used for stability studies. All drug products had high viability (> 95%), endotoxin levels of <0.2 EU/mL and tested negative for mycoplasma and bacterial contaminants. All UC-MSC batches were negative for ACE-2 expression (Cq?>35;GAPHD Cq: 15±2;no detectable levels by western blotting) and had tissue factor activity levels between 250-310pM. UC-MSC drug product was stable for up to 96h (>80% viability) and had?>90% viability up to 48h in all 3 dose panels. This study demonstrates the feasibility of manufacture and delivery of a multi-dose fresh cell product in an emergent ICU setting.