| First-year
Engineering Learning Communities Improve Retention at Texas A&M
University
At Texas A&M University (A&M), the restructured, college-wide
first-year program was implemented in 1998. Learning communities
in which students take two or more of their required first-year
science, engineering, and mathematics courses together in groups
of one hundred are a feature that built on the experiences of the
first-year prototype curricula. Learning communities value diversity,
are accessible to all interested individuals, and bring real world
situations into the engineering classroom. Their key components
are: (1) clustering of students in common courses (math, engineering,
science); (2) teaming; (3) active/cooperative
learning; (4) industry involvement in the classroom; (5) technology-enhanced
classrooms; (6) undergraduate peer teachers; (7) curriculum
integration; (8) faculty team teaching; and (9) assessment
and evaluation. Learning communities, since they facilitate
social relationships in a context directly connected with the classes
students are taking, should increase retention and encourage students
to continue in their first-year classes as a coherent unit. Based
on the experience with its pilot curricula and the experiences since
institutionalization in 1998-99, A&M believes that learning
communities offer a superior educational experience for engineering
students.
Improved Retention: As shown below,
students who participate in learning communities (With LC) are retained
in engineering at a much higher rate than similar students who do
not participate in learning communities (Without LC) during their
first year at A&M.
More Rapid Progress toward Graduation: In
addition to retaining students at a higher rate, learning communities
also promote more rapid progress toward graduation. The graph below
shows the percentage of the students prepared to enter sophomore
engineering courses. At every point in time, the percentage of students
who participated in learning communities (With LC) is greater than
the percentage of students who did not participate in learning communities
(Without LC).
Improved Attitudes toward Teamwork and Integration:
In the 2000 cohort, students who participated in learning communities
for both semesters (LC2) scored more positively on questions about
working in teams and recognizing the integration of mathematics
and science in their engineering courses than students who did not
participate in learning communities in either semester. Scores were
based on the Engineering Perception Test (EPT) given at the end
of the first year.
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