Using Undergraduate Mentors to Deliver Engineering Content to Calculus for Increased Persistence in Engineering

The objective of this work is to increase student retention in engineering by providing a better calculus experience with a minimal amount of institutional change and cost. This will be accomplished by augmenting calculus with real world engineering problems. Moreover, the program aims to strengthen students’ commitment to their chosen academic department and help them to feel as if they belong to a community. The presented program uses a novel method to deliver the engineering content without the need for significant institutional change. This will allow it to be easily adopted by other institutions. This paper describes a plan to use modules and mentors as a vehicle to deliver engineering content to engineering students in calculus. The modules will be composed of a series of self contained engineering problems that highlight important calculus concepts. Students will meet in small groups to discuss the modules. The group discussion will be facilitated by upper level engineering students in an effort to facilitate social engagement. Lastly, by using a diverse set of mentors the program will provide a role model for students from underrepresented groups. The evaluation plan for this project will incorporate a mixed-methods approach to data collection in determining if there is a correlation between engineering retention rates and student success in calculus classes that use problem-based learning modules with peer mentors.