Does Increasing Course Depth While Reducing Breadth Improve Learning in College Students?

Student-centered learning strategies have been effectively used to increase academic performance and learning in students. Educators have hypothesized that course content reduction can also improve student learning. However, support for this idea is lacking. In the present project, I am planning to assess whether a content reduction strategy increases the academic performance of upper-division stem students at the University of Texas-Austin. This project has four goals: 1) generate a literature review of the effect of content reduction in student learning, 2) develop a content reduction strategy for the discipline of ecology, 3) design and apply a course reduction intervention in a randomized sample of stem students taking BIO 373 Ecology, and 4) disseminate the results and developed strategies locally and nationally. The successful completion of this project will be assisted by a team of consultants helping develop the course reduction strategy and the course reduction intervention. This project strives to provide a road map for course content reduction across disciplines which could facilitate instruction of 21st Century skills in college students.