2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

“The University (XXX) Bridge to Engineering Excellence (BEE) Program was developed in response to the cancelation of an in-person minority focused university wide-residential bridge program due to COVID-19 in 2020, and it is a work in progress.”

The BEE program has been continued each summer to provide preparation for incoming students who cannot participate or choose not to participate in tradition in-person fulltime bridge program. BEE program goals through all three summers has been to provide first-year engineering and computer science students a review and prepare for differential and integral calculus, build connections with current successful engineering students, and introduce skills for becoming a successful student in STEM courses. The ultimate desired outcome is to increase retention and improve academic performance, particularly in math courses.

The initial major concern when creating the program was that incoming students would not be prepared for college-level calculus due to lack of any bridge opportunities. The BEE program includes synchronous math classes over six weeks, required daily tutoring sessions, and weekly academic and professional success workshops. The BEE program is taught online by university-based PhD mathematics faculty with extensive experience in these fields The calculus class topics include inverse functions, logarithms, trigonometry, limits and continuity, differentiation, applications of differentiation, integration, and applications of integration.

Initially, the course material was presented in a PowerPoint format, and based on student and tutor feedback this evolved to presenting all materials using an iPad in conjunction with the app GoodNotes. This iPad format has several advantages including material being presented in a classical ‘whiteboard-like’ setting, and giving the presentation a more traditional theme, and a format that allows for recording, posting, and editing the virtual class for future study. The class structure also utilized breakout rooms to change the pace and encourage interaction with other class members and tutors. Another change was the use of mandatory quizzes and final exam. Although, the course ‘grades’ were not ‘real,’ it gave students immediate feedback on their level of knowledge and simulated a credit course providing more motivation, thus, increasing student participation in the assessments.

Another element of the program was daily one-hour tutoring sessions and these have been a part of the program from the beginning. Tutors are current engineering and computer science students and are assigned to the same participants throughout the program. The sessions are designed for homework assignments and attendance was required.

The BEE program assigned weekly readings on topics to establish a foundation for engineering success. The topics ranged from mental health to internships with current engineers and the material was presented as a featured speaker or a panel. Tutors initiated discussions about the weekly topics during their sessions. Based on the feedback the utilized book was changed to The Secrets of College Success and the readings were targeted toward success in STEM courses.

The program so far has helped BEE students increase their mean calculus readiness ALEKS math scores from 58 to 82/100, and the first-year GPAs have improved to 3.18 versus the historical average of 2.75 for CoE majors. Historically, 2nd-year retention in XXX CoE majors has been 67 percent and for BEE students this is now 77 percent.