Interdisciplinary Initiatives Program Round 1 - 2000

Jane Parnes, Immuno. & Rheum.
Elizabeth Mellins, Pediatrics
Decker Walker, School of Education
Larry Leifer, Mechanical Engineering

The main goal of this proposal was to develop a new, cross-disciplinary course to teach medicine to graduate students in biological sciences and bioengineering. We proposed to use the multi-system disease diabetes mellitus as the basis for teaching about medicine and human disease. We further proposed to evaluate the initial version of the course in collaboration with the Stanford Learning Laboratory and the School of Education, and to use the knowledge gained from this pilot course to revise and teach the course in the second year.

We are currently planning the second version of Immunology 230 with improvements based on suggestions that came out of the evaluation process, and we have begun to consider additional cross-disciplinary curriculum development.