UCLA

How might learning principles be leveraged in learning environment designs to support increased academic success amongst traditionally underserved learners? This intervention is an example of a learning design that has successfully supported the recovery of credit amongst traditionally underserved students who previously failed introductory biology. This study sought to better understand potential relationships between the design components (program dynamics) and student success. The results show that the Blue group (students with the highest final course grade), on average, produced more words in their summaries and annotated more main ideas and supporting evidence items than their Green and Beige counterparts. After four-weeks, some students were able to articulate functions relating to the embedded support tools. Patterns do not appear to exist in support function awareness amongst students by performance groups. No discernable awareness characteristics distinguished successful and less successful students in the intervention.