Engaging Students in Bioengineering: A Basic Structure for Collaborative Learning Journal Clubs

Biomechanics courses often attract students from diverse academic backgrounds including a mix of engineers and scientists. A Journal Club, in which students read and discuss articles from scientific literature, is a collaborative learning activity that is accessible to students from these diverse scientific backgrounds. Journal Clubs originated as way to cost-share periodicals [1] and have evolved as educational tools. Journal Clubs in medical education [2–4] are cited for both increasing medical knowledge in 88% of medical residents [2] and bridging the gap between research and clinical practice. [1] In an extensive literature review, 80% of 101 studies reported that Journal Club discussions improved knowledge and critical appraisal skills. [5] Journal Club format is flexible and no strong preference in method has emerged in the literature. [2] The present work describes a structured Journal Club that has been implemented in a biomechanics course for three years and presents results from student surveys.