Transferring The Knowledge In A Bridge Program: Engineering Students Become Coaches

A unique, very successful summer bridge program was held for incoming underrepresented minority freshman and transfer engineering students at Arizona State University (ASU) during the summer of 1996. The Minority Engineering Program (MEP) Summer Bridge Program was a two week residential program designed to ensure academic success for the 44 student participants. The program was supported by a grant from the Coalition to Increase Minority Degrees and ASU’s College of Engineering and Applied Sciences (CEAS). Unlike typical Bridge Programs taught by faculty and staff, the curriculum for this program was delivered by undergraduate engineering students. Three students, two women and one man, formed “Dream Team I” for the curriculum development and delivery for each day from 8:00 am to 5:00 p.m., when the dinner hour began. The evening hour activities from 6:00 p.m. until midnight were developed and supervised by “Dream Team II”, composed of four additional undergraduate students, three males and one female, who were selected from the three underrepresented minority societies, AISES, NSBE and SHPE. The program content was developed by both teams, with the support of the Director and the Program Coordinator of the CEAS Minority Engineering Program (MEP) and a faculty member. In particular, the curriculum was designed by Dream Team I in consultation with a CEAS Associate Professor. The coach professor met with the students on several occasions to plan the program, made himself available as a consulting coach during the first week of the program, and allowed the students full autonomy over the instruction during the second week. The curriculum team determined that the students would be teamed to develop a Web Page to be presented at the conclusion of the program. After each module, the curriculum team reconvened to discuss progress and to make modifications for the following sessions. At their own initiative, each day, the two dream teams met during dinner in a transition meeting to evaluate student progress in the program and to better plan for the evening’s activities. The participants related very well to instructor “peers”. The instructors had credibility since they had been through the same type of curriculum. Student evaluations of the program were extremely positive with particularly high points for the instruction portion of the Web Page development. Although the student instructors taught teaming, at the same time, they were forced to learn a lot about teaming and teaching. They had several conflicts to resolve among P ge 246.1 themselves. One is now considering teaching as a career. Curriculum team members continued to tutor students after the program creating a support structure for the students. Introduction A unique, very successful summer bridge program was held for incoming underrepresented minority freshman and transfer engineering students at Arizona State University (ASU) during the summer of 1996. The Minority Engineering Program (MEP) Summer Bridge Program was a two week residential program designed to ensure academic success for the 44 student participants. The program was supported by a grant from the Coalition to Increase Minority Degrees (CIMD) and ASU’s College of Engineering and Applied Sciences (CEAS). (Note: CIMD is sponsored by the National Science Foundation, is affiliated with the Southern Rocky Mountain Alliance for Minority Participation, and is now called the Western Alliance to Expand Student Opportunities.) The primary purpose of the program was to aid in the retention of students by assisting in their academic preparation prior to attending a class at ASU. Our statistics show that if our students are going to leave the CEAS, most will leave after the first or second semester . Th program was geared toward reducing student anxiety prior to classes and toward ensuring they felt at ease immediately upon starting their classes at ASU. Therefore, eligibility for the program required the participants be admitted into ASU’s CEAS and registered in a department in the College of Engineering. Registration ensured that the student had medical clearance, academic advisement from a faculty member, and that they were serious about pursuing a degree in engineering. Secondary purposes of the program were to recruit students to ASU and to provide student financial support. The two week stay on campus exposed the students to ASU and gave them the opportunity to compete for scholarships. The focus of the program was achieved by centering the curriculum around the introductory engineering course ECE 100: Introduction to Engineering Design . The catalog description of the course is the following: Introduction to engineering design philosophy and methodology: computer modeling of systems, processes, and components; design for customer satisfaction, profitability, quality and manufacturing; economic analysis; flow charting; sketching CAD; and teaming. A term design project is included . This course is the first course that an engineering student will usually take in their curriculum and is a four semester hour, open-ended design course. The course has three components; laboratory, projects and modeling with six contact hours . Initial Planning The critical elements of the MEP Summer Bridge Program were to introduce the incoming students to the campus, university life, and the engineering curriculum. When the planning for the program began, the MEP determined that there were five program goals that needed to be incorporated into the curriculum of the two week program. These goals were quickly outlined during the planning meetings as: 1. Build community among the participants and the current engineering students 2. Introduce the participants to computing at ASU P ge 246.2 3. Introduce the participants to engineering and more specifically incorporate: • engineering documentation and design projects • team building and team competition • use of computer software such as Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint • problem solving skills • research activities 4. Help the students achieve an attitude of “I can be a successful engineering student at ASU” 5. Address issues relevant to freshman students such as the function of the registrars office, financial aid, and academic advisement The program began with the solicitation of a faculty member to develop and to deliver the curriculum element of the program. The first choice was Dr. Barry McNeill, Associate Professor of Engineering, who is one of the faculty members who developed and delivers the curriculum of ECE 100. Since most of the goals of the program were centered around this course, Dr. McNeill was the natural choice as the faculty member for this program. However, his advice at that time was that the absolute best people to deliver the curriculum were the undergraduate students who had previously taken the course. He felt this way for several reasons: (1) the participants would identify with and respect students near their own age who had already taken the class; (2) the participants could easily envision themselves as engineering students through the role modeling of the student teachers and, (3) the student teachers would strengthen their own skills and enjoy teaching the participants. He immediately thought of students who had taken his course and who had enjoyed it and done well. In the end the team consisted of one student whose expertise was in computer programming and computer utilities, another who enjoyed the team building skills and one whose skills were in the computer packages. Between these three students almost all of the desired elements of the program were covered. The three students, two women and one man, formed “Dream Team I” for the curriculum development and delivery for each day from 8:00 am to 5:00 p.m., when the dinner hour began. The evening hour activities from 6:00 p.m. until midnight were developed and supervised by “Dream Team II”, composed of four additional undergraduate students, three males and one female, who were selected from the three underrepresented minority societies, the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES), the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) and the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE). Curriculum The program was developed by both teams, with the support of the Director and the Program Coordinator of the CEAS Minority Engineering Program and Dr. McNeill. The coach professor met with the students on several occasions to plan the program, made himself available as a consulting coach during the first week of the program, then allowed the students full autonomy over the instruction during the second week. His consulting fees were equal to one week’s full salary. Dream Team I worked full time for one month prior to the beginning of the program. Early in the discussions, it was decided that the curriculum must include certain skills that the students would need to excel in the ECE 100 course. These skills included: communications, computing, team work, and time management. In addition, the team wanted to include a certain P ge 246.3 amount of introduction to the university environment and to encourage the students to do research in the areas of financial aid, student health services, registrar services, and student organizations in engineering. In particular, they wanted the students to research the three minority engineering societies, AISES, NSBE, and SHPE. The students of Dream Team I set to the task of preparing their curriculum. They did this through constant meetings and interaction with Dr. McNeill. The dream team had to develop a design project to be challenging enough to keep the participants very busy during their two week stay, yet be specific enough in the scope to be realistically finished in a two week program. The project could have multiple dimensions since it would be a team project and at the request of the program coordinator would need to be comprehensive enou