BRAID: Bridging the Disciplines with Authentic Inquiry & Discourse

跨学科（99）正在进行一项纵向研究，以确定学生在大一期间参加BRAID课程（交织的科学和非科学课程）是否会表现出改进的科学实验设计技能和改进的内容知识，并持续到随后的高级课程。 在一个致力于研究自然科学及其对社会的影响的住宅学习社区中，学生有机会报名参加BRAID课程，这些课程将生物学和化学的讲座和实验室部分明确地联系在一起，并与数学和历史，哲学和科学社会学联系在一起。学生们住在一个建筑物中，该建筑物设有包括教室和实验室在内的科学设施，教师办公室和行政和学术支持办公室。 在整个新生队列的约625名学生选择参加所有，没有或一些BRAID课程。 因此，创建了三个队列;一个将作为对照组，两个产生“剂量”变量。 以往关于传统课程教学改革对学生学习成绩影响的纵向研究较少。 先前的研究结果表明，与参加相应的传统入门课程的同龄人相比，参加改革后的入门课程的学生在整个本科学习过程中的学习收获不断增加。该项目由一个经验丰富的多学科团队进行，有潜力作出重大贡献，了解大学生如何学习，并铺平了道路，综合课程的发展。 这项研究在大学越来越多地采用生活-学习社区模式的时候具有特别的意义。

Interdisciplinary (99) A longitudinal study is being conducted to determine if students enrolled in BRAID courses (interwoven science and non-science courses) during their freshman year will show improved scientific experimental design skills and improved content knowledge that persists into subsequent upper level courses. Students in a residential learning community devoted to studying the natural sciences and their impact on society are being given the opportunity to enroll in BRAID courses that explicitly tie lecture and laboratory portions of biology and chemistry with each other and to mathematics and history, philosophy and sociology of science.The students are living in a building that houses science facilities including both classrooms and laboratories, faculty offices and both administrative and academic support offices. Students in the entire freshmen cohort of approximately 625 chose to participate in all, none or some of the BRAID courses. Thus, three cohorts are created; one that will serve as a control group and two that give rise to a "dosage" variable. Prior longitudinal research on the influence of reformed teaching practices on later performance in traditional courses is limited. Previous findings suggest that students participating in a reformed introductory course experience increasing learning gains as they continue throughout their undergraduate studies as compared to peers enrolled in the corresponding traditional introductory course.The project, being conducted by an experienced multidisciplinary team, has the potential to make a major contribution to the understanding of how undergraduates learn and to pave the way for the development of integrated curricula. The study has particular relevance during this time of increasing adoption by colleges of the living-learning community model.