Using Cooperative Learning In A Freshman Summer Engineering Orientation Program

The College of Engineering at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), the largest university in the continental United States with a majority-Hispanic student population, has offered a variety of freshman summer orientation programs for entering freshmen since 1976. Drawing from past experiences, the program has evolved into the Summer Engineering Enrichment Experience (SEEE) which is now a required, one-week, non-credit, 40 contact-hour program for all first-time entering freshmen into the College. Students are immersed in mathematics, college survival skills, advising, and engineering design. The underlying objective of SEEE is to create an environment for entering students which is supportive both academically and socially. UTEP is for the most part a commuter university which elicits many challenges in program delivery. In particular, students must have the opportunity to develop a strong sense of community with faculty, professional staff, and students. In this paper, the fundamental SEEE program components will be discussed in detail with a particular emphasis on the cooperative learning aspects of those components. Preliminary data along with informal evaluation have indicated program success and will be included in this paper. INTRODUCTION Founded in 1914 as the School of Mines & Metallurgy, the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), is located in the foothills of the Rocky Mountain Range in Far West Texas. UTEP is poised to develop, implement and test strategies that address the needs of non-traditional students. Since 1976, UTEP’S College of Engineering has offered a variety of programs aimed at the recruitment and retention of engineering students through its Engineering Programs Office (EPO) which reports directly to the Dean of Engineering. The proliferation of Minority Engineering Programs (MEP) in universities across the nation is testimonial to the national awakening of the need to develop a prepared technical workforce, particularly among non-traditional groups. MEPs traditionally focus on a subset of the engineering student body and employ a variety of successful retention strategies such as structured study groups, summer bridge programs, study centers, and orientation courses, to name a few. While these retention strategies have been implemented at UTEP, they have been introduced to the greater student body and are not focused particularly on traditionally underrepresented students. “ Scaling up” retention strategies at UTEP has been a challenge for the EPO for the last few years and a variety of new/modified’ strategies have been introduced to meet that challenge. One such modification is the introduction of structured cooperative $iiii: ) 1996 ASEE Annual Conference Proceedings ‘..J3IQ . P ge 107.1 learning in UTEP’S College of Engineering summer bridge program, which “bridges” students between secondary and post-secondary institutions and is required of all entering engineering freshmen. Since the program is required, one week sessions implemented throughout the summer accommodate the more than 200 entering engineering freshmen. With only one week to deliver a program which is designed to build a community of learners, the cooperative learning paradigm was implemented in this non-credit program to meet the challenge of building social networks among the program participants. COOPERATIVE LEARNING As the trend toward exploring pedagogical methodologies is expanding, many college classrooms today are moving away from the traditional lecture model. These “new” methodologies are commonly referred to as active learning in which less emphasis is placed on transmitting information (passive learning) and more on developing students’ skills in knowledge acquisition (active learning). Research cited3 clearly indicates that students in traditional lectures assimilate far less information than those in which some type of active learning is taking place. Various types of active learning exist such as peer teaching, cooperative learning (formal and informal), writing in the classroom, computer-based instruction, visual-based instruction, to name a few. One particular type of active learning is cooperative learning which is the instructional use of small groups in which students work together to maximize their own and each other’s learning5. Research shows that small groups using cooperative learning techniques are positively correlated with student cognitive development, retention, and sense of community. The effective use of cooperative learning in the college classroom, particularly in technical programs, is on the rise and its use leads students to higher academic achievement, greater persistence through graduation, higher levels of reasoning and critical thinking skills, deeper understanding of learned material, lower levels of anxiety and stress, greater intrinsic motivation to learn and achieve, more positive relationships with peers, and higher self-esteem4. A formal cooperative group must have clear positive interdependence, must promote each other’s learning face-to-face, hold each other individually accountable for his/her share of the work, appropriately use the interpersonal and small group skills, and process group effectiveness. Positive interdependence ensures that all members of a group are responsible for their own learning as well as the learning of the other group members, Face-to-face promotive interaction is characterized by group members interacting effectively and efficiently through the learning process while individual accountability ensures that all members are responsible for the final product. The use of group social skills ensures that all members communicate effectively while group processing allows group members to reflect on the effectiveness of the group. Based on the characteristics of the UTEP student population entering engineering and computer science, cooperative learning was selected as the fundamental pedagogy used in the SEEE program administered by the College of Engineering at UTEP in summer 1995. It was used in all components of the program which included math enrichment workshops, computer science and engineering design, and college survival skills workshops. Research shows that creating social involvement, integration and bonding with classmates is strongly related to retentions. This is particularly true for disadvantaged underrepresented minorities who have been found to be passive in academic settings’. Thus, in the summer of 1995, the College of Engineering completely modified the program delivery for SEEE to create an active learning environment. The fundamental pedagogy for delivery of all programmatic components of the SEEE program was cooperative learning. As noted by Roger Johnson, David Johnson, and Karl Smith in Cooperative Learning: Increasing College Faculty Instructional Productive@, ASHEERIC Higher Education Report No. 4, “ ?fiifiii$ ‘@lllR’,: . . . cooperative learning is the instructional use of small groups so that 1996 ASEE Annual Conference Proceedings P ge 107.2 students work together to maximize their own and each other’s learning.” Research indicates that cooperative learning increases students’ achievement and creates positive relationships among students. As predicted, the cooperative learning paradigm created a strong sense of community and team building among program participants. PROGRAM DESCRIPTION SEEE is a one-week, 40 contact-hour, non-credit, required program for all engineering and computer science students admitted into the university who are entering their freshman year in the subsequent fall semester. Six sessions are administered each summer which provide students with a preview of college life on the UTEP campus while discovering the worlds of engineering and computer science through design laboratories. Students have the opportunity to meet faculty, staff, and undergraduate/graduate engineering students. A non-credit college level math short course and workshop is conducted to strengthen students’ mathematics background and assist them in appropriate mathematics placement for the upcoming semester. The fundamental goal of SEEE is to prepare entering engineering and computer science students for the rigors of undergraduate study. The objectives of the SEEE program are: 1) to acclimatize students to a commuter university environment and college requirements; 2) to develop a community of learners; 3) to develop skills that foster academic and professional success; 4) to encourage students to form valuable ties with undergraduates, faculty and staffi 5) to place students into appropriate mathematics course for the subsequent fall semester; 6) to increase awareness of engineering programs; 7) to advise and register students for the subsequent fall semester. With the implementation of cooperative learning, the first two objectives were easily met. Cooperative learning created caring, committed friendships and work relationships. The informal assessment of the behavior of the first semester engineering students during the 1995 fall semester reveals the positive influence of cooperative learning. PROGRAM COMPONENTS SEEE has three fundamental components: college survival skills, mathematics workshops, and design. The college survival skills component provides students with the fi.mdamental knowledge of “what it takes to succeed” in college. The mathematics workshops provide students with an intensive review of precalculus in preparation for a placement exam administered during the last day of the program which determines the mathematics course students will take in the subsequent fall semester. In the design component, students are exposed to the computer science and engineering programs offered at UTEP through related projects that provide a challenging and informative glimpse into each aspect of engineering. SEEE students are first introduced to the cooperative learning paradigm during the first morning session. In that