Bridging the Gap: Exploring the Definition and Applications of the Learning Bridge

The concept of a "learning bridge" encompasses various approaches and programs designed to facilitate smoother transitions and enhance learning experiences across different educational stages and contexts. These bridges aim to address gaps in knowledge, skills, or confidence, enabling individuals to progress more effectively toward their academic, professional, and personal goals.

The Bridge to Learning Project at Stanford University

One notable example of a learning bridge is the "Bridge to Learning" project. This initiative, part of the Early Life Stress and Resilience Program at Stanford University School of Medicine, focuses on promoting student-centered teaching and learning. Its primary goal is to foster personally meaningful achievement and well-being for all students.

Key Features of the Bridge to Learning Project

Target Audience: The project is designed for K-12 teachers, administrators, and teacher educators.
Course Content: The self-paced mini-course explores the cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions of adolescent development and motivation within educational settings.
Focus on Relationships: It emphasizes the reciprocal relationships between individuals and their family, community, cultural, and political contexts.
Affirming Perspectives: The project acknowledges and affirms the positive contributions of students' family and cultural values, experiences, and practices.

Learning Objectives of the Bridge to Learning Project

The project aims to equip educators with the ability to:

Describe common motivational contexts in schools.
Identify psychological factors that can hinder a student's academic achievement, social functioning, and emotional health.
Develop a social, emotional, and cultural lens for teaching and learning.
Define motivation and explain the three basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and belonging.
Explain the relationship between basic need satisfaction and motivation.
Explain the two subtypes of operant learning.
Describe examples of external contingencies and their consequences.
Explain how social factors can influence the outcomes of external contingencies.
Describe the criteria for selecting an effective contingency.
Describe three types of motivation, the internalization process, and the six regulatory styles.
Explain how orientation styles, goals, and interpersonal relationships affect basic need satisfaction and motivation.
Describe key concepts, principles, processes, and strategies of autonomy-supportive teaching and coaching.
Discuss the roles that values, strengths, and goals play in student achievement and well-being.
Enact evidence-informed approaches to coaching students, such as Motivational Interviewing (MI) and the ABCDEF model of cognitive change.

Bridge Learn: A Learning Management System (LMS)

Bridge Learn is an award-winning LMS designed to help organizations create and deliver learning to their employees, partners, and customers. It is more than just a content library; it's a proactive partner for reaching key training objectives.

Key Features of Bridge Learn

Targeted AI Upskilling and Learning Recommendations: Bridge uses AI to identify trending skills based on job titles, making it easy to spot any gaps.
Mobile Capabilities: Employees can keep on top of their training no matter where they’re based or what device suits them best.
Content Creation Options: Users can get off-the-shelf content or create exactly the resources they need with the help of Bridge’s built-in authoring tool.
Automating Administrative Processes: Achieving training goals isn’t just about supplying the right learning: it’s about supporting that learning with good administration and streamlined workflows.
Hands-Free Report Distribution: Bridge’s analytics tool isn’t just a great way to visualize learner data in digestible ways-it’s also an administrator’s dream.
Smart Groups and Auto Enrolments: Bridge learners are automatically assigned a smart group based on factors like their roles, departments, and levels of seniority.
Boundless Integrations and Constant Support: Bridge offers 24/7 technical support, 365 days a year.

Benefits of Using Bridge Learn

Upskilled, Engaged, and Fully Compliant Workforce: The benefits of good training are highly tangible.
Improved Net Profit: The top 30% of dealers in terms of net profit invest higher in training than average ones-and the top 5% invest higher still.
Pinpoint Accuracy in Establishing Training Goals: Achieve them with targeted training, and support them with automation-laced administration and always-available technical assistance.
Streamlined and Fully Intuitive Set of Capabilities: Transform the admin side of training into a walk in the park.

The Bridge Curriculum: A Transitional Program

The Bridge Curriculum is a transitional Kindergarten through first-grade curriculum that shifts emphasis from attainment of measurable standards-based, age-defined abilities to child-centered intellectual development as defined by Dewey, Montessori, etc.

Key Features of The Bridge Curriculum

Focus on Child-Centered Intellectual Development: The model serves as a conceptual framework that enables students to utilize both teacher-initiated AND self-initiated play as a means to “traverse” multiple experiences in a variety of content and skill areas.
Teacher Professional Development: Teacher professional development and education related to the characteristics of play, learning theory, and child growth and development are integral features of The Bridge Curriculum.

Adult Education Bridge Programs

Adult education bridge programs assist students in obtaining the necessary academic, employability, and technical skills through three required components: contextualized instruction, career development, and support services.

Key Components of Adult Education Bridge Programs in Illinois

Contextualized Instruction: Instruction tailored to the specific needs and goals of adult learners.
Career Development: Guidance and resources to help students explore career options and develop the skills needed to succeed in the workplace.
Support Services: Assistance with issues such as transportation, childcare, and financial aid.
Transition Services: Transition services that provide students with the information and assistance they need to successfully navigate the process of moving from adult education or remedial coursework to credit or occupational programs.

Open Learning: Bridge to Success (B2S)

The Open Learning: Bridge to Success (B2S) project aims to help students improve their college readiness and successfully attain their academic goals.

Key Features of B2S

Open Educational Resources (OER): B2S offers open educational resources in math abilities and learning skills courses to prepare students for success in higher education.
Institutional Partners: AACC, in partnership with MIT, OU of London, England, and UMUC, developed the B2S project to improve college readiness and completion.
Free and Open Online Content: The B2S college partnership has designed free and open online content that students can use to close gaps in their math ability, allowing them to move into college-level courses and complete a certificate or degree.
Modular Content: The modular content is enhanced with activities (pre-assessment diagnostic activities, formative and post assessments) to engage adults in the learning process.

Why Open Educational Resources?

The B2S program has created open educational courses to assist students in assessing how they learn and in developing strategies of how to learn. The program also presents mathematics with real-world applications to strengthen students’ math skills and understanding of math. The goal is to close students’ developmental gaps so that they can move into college-level courses and complete a certificate or degree. The project is intended to offer open and free courses to improve college retention and to enhance recruitment from underserved populations.

Long-Term Impact of the Bridge to Success Project

Reduce the need for remediation in developmental math.
Reduce remediation costs.
Accelerate time to completion of degree.
Open pathways to the acquisition of new skills.
Improve student success in gatekeeper courses.
Develop math subject-matter competencies.
Develop study skills.
Develop confidence for further study.
Expand range, depth, and access to college readiness content.
Ensure all materials are open, discoverable, and standards based.
Increase awareness and impact of OER design to support teaching and learning.
Promote adaptation or adoption of best practices to enhance success and achievement in gatekeeper courses.
Support collaborative adaptation of OER by enhancing OU’s OpenLearn and LabSpace.
Explore the effectiveness of adding a social network dimension to the study of open content.

Content and Curriculum of B2S

Succeed with Math: Succeed with Math reviews key concepts in a nonthreatening manner to build confidence in students’ math skills and to reduce the fear of math.
Learning to Learn: The online Learning to Learn program was designed for individuals thinking about starting or returning to college. Learning to Learn encourages participants to consider possible educational choices and the value of making plans for the future, and it helps individuals develop essential college and life skills.

Learning to Learn Course Topics

Unit 1: Course Overview provides the course description, the activities in the course, and how to use the course to identify strengths and skills as a learner.
Unit 2: You and Your Learning discusses the definition of learning, helps identify skills and abilities, and facilitates an examination of personal learning style.
Unit 3: Exploring Learning explores how learning helps students achieve personal and professional goals.
Unit 4: Where Next focuses on setting future goals for learning and development.
Unit 5: Reflecting Backward, Reflecting Forward examines the cycle of learning and reflection.

Succeed with Math Design and Content

The design philosophy behind Succeed with Math is that math, as well as being a fascinating subject, underpins practically every aspect of modern life. Thus, this course moves from math in the abstract to an emphasis on practical math with real-world applications.

Unit 1: Math and You builds math confidence, develops problem-solving strategies, and explores study skills to succeed in mathematics.
Unit 2: Getting Down to Basics addresses the history of numbers, using numbers, lines, decimals, rounding, estimating, basic operations, and the order of operations, and using knowledge in real-world scenarios.
Unit 3: Numbers Everywhere investigates units of measurement, signed numbers, and reading and writing mathematics.
Unit 4: Parts of the Whole focuses on writing and using fractions and reinforces strategies for what to do when stuck on a problem.
Unit 5: Relationships Among Numbers addresses how numbers are used in daily life, and connections between fractions, percentages, and ratios.
Unit 6: Exploring Patterns and Formulas instructs students on visualizing problems using pictures and diagrams, interpreting and using notation for inequalities, and interpreting word formulas to solve problems.
Unit 7: Investigating Geometric Shapes and Sizes prepares students in understanding the key properties of geometry, and in interpreting and drawing scale diagrams.
Unit 8: Communicating with Data, Charts, and Graphs teaches how to calculate means, medians, and ranges for data sets, and how to interpret and construct tables.

Pilot Implementations of B2S

The course content is currently being introduced in pilot programs throughout the United States. UMUC is currently offering Learning to Learn, facilitated by a campus instructor, as a bridge between enrollment and a student’s first day of class. AACC is currently integrating the Learning to Learn content into a number of pilot programs across campus, including integration of the course content into Orientation Programs, Freshman Year Experience coursework, Adult Basic Education programs, and traditional college classes needing some enhancement of learning skills. The Succeed with Math content will be offered as a course alternative for students recruited by the AACC math department.

Read also: Understanding PLCs

Learning Bridge in Pharmacy Education

In pharmacy education, the "Learning Bridge" refers to a curriculum program designed to better integrate the material first-year (P1) students learned in pharmaceutical science courses into their introductory pharmacy practice experiences.

Key Features of the Learning Bridge in Pharmacy Education

Integration of Didactic and Experiential Learning: The Learning Bridge promotes integration within the curriculum requires careful planning on the part of both experiential and didactic educators.
Active Learning and Critical-Thinking Skills: The curriculum emphasized active learning and critical-thinking skills; an emphasis supported by ACPE.
Preceptor-Student Communication and Interaction: The Learning Bridge process was designed such that students were strongly encouraged to work on the assignments at their pharmacy sites on the IPPE days, and preceptors were asked to provide time at the site for Learning Bridge completion and discussion.

Effectiveness of the Learning Bridge in Pharmacy Education

Surveys of students and preceptors indicated that the Learning Bridge promoted students' interaction with their preceptors as well as development of active learning, self-directed learning, and critical-thinking skills.

Applied Learning as a Bridge

Applied learning is a partnership that helps students combine experience with learning. It is an umbrella term for many experiential learning activities, including service learning, study abroad, research, and internships.

Benefits of Applied Learning

Development of Valued Skills: Applied learning helps students develop problem-solving, collaboration, customer service, and communication skills.
Tangible Return on Investment: As universities become more expensive, students (and parents) want to see a tangible return on their investment.

Read also: Learning Resources Near You

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