Developing a learning community to support student learning in a first year statics course

Abstract

Engineering statics is a core first year engineering course which has had a high failure rate and a low level of student satisfaction for several years. It caters to a diverse student cohort which includes a large percentage of distance students. Some of the factors that appear to contribute to the poor course outcomes include students’ immature study habits, first year isolation issues and variable background knowledge. We are seeking to address these issues by building a collaborative learning community through peer mentoring in both a face to face and virtual (online) environment. Peer leaders will be used to facilitate learning sessions with small groups of on campus students. These sessions will then be replicated in the online mode and extended to more general learning sessions within the university’s residential colleges. This paper discusses the proposed implementation and evaluation strategy for this program in semester 2, 2010 as well as the expected outcomes.