Math foundation, peer support are key to UC engineering first year

The University of Cincinnati College of Engineering and Applied Science (CEAS) is committed to providing its students with the resources to succeed. CEAS strives to respond to evolving student needs, which is why engineering students starting this fall will have a slightly different first-year experience than previous years.

In the past, CEAS placed first-year engineering students into learning communities: groups of about 20 students with the same major who take four to five classes together. CEAS originally created these learning communities to help with the transition from high school to college. The idea was that engineering students in the same classes would study together and, therefore, learn together.

Peer mentors (upper-class engineering students who lead these groups) would facilitate meetings or study groups twice a week outside of class for their learning community to either discuss transition issues or work together on homework.

Socially, this pairing worked well. Students met others in their program and easily established close ties; however, the model still had some room for improvement.

"The old model may have been building community within each major, but academically, it didn't have the effect it was intended to have," says P.K. Imbrie, Ph.D., professor and head of the Department of Engineering Education.

The disconnect was rooted in the varying range of math experience among first-year engineering students: some students who enter UC start in pre-calculus; others start in varying upper-level calculus courses. Students progressed through these math curricula at different rates. Since an integral component of the learning community model was the peer study group, students in different math courses were not benefiting as much as they could from the learning community.

"As soon as you start breaking the model because of the math, that model is no longer serving its intended purpose," says Imbrie. "We saw a need to make a change."

Imbrie's team modified the roster assignment process for math courses. Rather than continue to divide students into learning communities exclusively by major, CEAS is assigning first-year students to introductory engineering courses based on their math level. Surrounded by more students in the same math class, these engineering students are more likely to succeed, says Imbrie.

CEAS is also eliminating the twice-a-week breakout sessions outside of class and replacing it with hour-long sessions during engineering class time. This ensures complete participation from all first-year engineering students.

"We're giving CEAS students a learning community experience right in the classroom," says Imbrie.

CEAS will continue to offer the core components of the learning community, like the transitional support and peer mentors, but now it's bringing these components directly to the students. Topics peer mentors will cover this coming fall will include campus resources, stress management, career fairs, test preparation and other social and academic checkpoints. The topics aim to cultivate academic success, professional development and successful transitions for first-year engineering students.

This year also marks the launch of the engineering living-learning community, a community of CEAS students who live together in the same residence hall. Up to 280 first-year engineering students will occupy four floors of Daniels Hall.

Imbrie understands that change is sometimes difficult, but he also sees the potential for long-term success and retention.

"The goal with these changes," says Imbrie, "is to create an environment that fosters community, collaborative learning and campus engagement."