Interdisciplinary summer bridge programs to improve student outcomes
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Ecology, Evolutionary Studies, Mathematical Biology, Science and Medical Education
- Keywords
- bridge program, science education, active learning, team-based learning
- Copyright
- © 2019 White
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2019. Interdisciplinary summer bridge programs to improve student outcomes. PeerJ Preprints 7:e27816v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27816v1
Abstract
The Biology Undergraduate Scholars Program (BUSP) at UC Davis provides additional academic support and advising for a small (<40 students) cohort in the biological sciences each year. Students come from historically underrepresented racial or ethnic groups, the educational opportunity program, or have a disability. As part of the program, students participate in a two-week biology bridge program to prepare them for introductory ecology and evolution. The bridge program involves active learning assignments and team-based learning with a focus on the connection between biology and mathematics. We found that BUSP participants improved their biology knowledge through the summer bridge program. However, math confidence, SAT scores, Grit measures, and performance in the bridge program were not predictive of success in their biology course. We also found that BUSP students were more likely to remain in Life Science major and graduate.
Author Comment
This was a poster at the Gordon Research Seminar, Developing Biology Education Research Expertise for Early Career Scientists, held June 22-23 2019.