Impact of Peer Mentoring on Freshmen Engineering Students (original) (raw)

The Impact Peer Mentoring Can have on Freshman Students

Conference on Frontiers in Education, 2006

The transition from high school to college can be very difficult for many students. At the University of Pittsburgh, we have a system of courses and academic counseling that is designed to address these issues and help with this transition. One major component to help the freshman make this major transition is a series of mentoring courses that the entering student can select for the first semester. This paper will discuss how these courses are integrated and describe the interaction of counseling with the first semester engineering problem solving course. The paper will also discuss the mentor selection process, the mentor-training program, and the topics covered in the mentoring sessions. Finally the impact of mentoring will be compared to the student learning styles to show how mentoring can have a major impact on a group of students.

Impact of Peer Mentoring on Freshman Students

2000

The transition from high school to college can be very difficult for many students. At the University of Pittsburgh, we have a system of courses and academic counseling that is designed to address these issues and help with this transition. One major component to help the freshman make this major transition is a series of mentoring courses that the entering student can select for the first semester. This paper will discuss how these courses are integrated and describe the interaction of counseling with the first semester engineering problem solving course. The paper will also discuss the mentor selection process, the mentor-training program, and the topics covered in the mentoring sessions. Finally the impact of mentoring will be compared to the student learning styles to show how mentoring can have a major impact on a group of students.

Integrating peer mentoring into the freshman curriculum

34th Annual Frontiers in Education, 2004. FIE 2004., 2004

The transition from high school to college can be very difficult for many students. At the University of Pittsburgh, we have a system of courses and academic counseling that is designed to address these issues and help with this transition. One major component to help the freshman make this major transition is a series of mentoring courses that the entering student can select for the first semester. The student must also enroll in a Freshman Problem Solving course that details the use of various computer tools. This paper will discuss how these courses are integrated and describe the interaction of counseling with the first semester engineering problem solving course. The paper will also discuss the mentor selection process, the mentor-training program, and the topics covered in the mentoring sessions.

Impact of Peer Mentoring on Student Learning and Connection To Engineering

2013

Many students who enter engineering as an academic discipline in their first year of study switch to a different major after the first or second year. The attrition rates range from 30% to 50% depending on the institution. The dropout rate is even higher for underrepresented groups. Research studies show that the significant factors of attrition in engineering programs are quantitative skill level, student study habits, commitment to the program, and connections to peers. This paper describes an approach to address some of these factors. In this approach, we positioned the use of peer mentors as an improved institutional effort to retain students in engineering. Results show that the engineering peer mentoring program was considered helpful in learning calculus by the majority of Calculus I and Calculus II student participants.

Effectiveness of a peer mentoring program in engineering education

IEEE EDUCON 2010 Conference, 2010

The Mentoring Program of the Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros de Telecomunicación (ETSIT) is intended to establish a mechanism based on peer mentoring provided by upper-class students (Mentors) to provide help, support, and resources to incoming first-year students (Mentees). This paper focuses on the experience gained in the creation and development of the ETSIT Mentoring Program during five years. The evolution of the results obtained from the evaluation of various aspects of the ETSIT Mentoring Program, is also presented.

AC 2007-804: A PEER-LED TEAM LEARNING PROGRAM FOR FRESHMEN ENGINEERING STUDENTS: IMPACT ON RETENTION

2007

This paper evaluates an innovative instructional approach based on peer-led team learning available to freshman students in the Engineering School at an R1 university in the Midwest. The paper builds on results of a previous study which found a positive impact of the program on grades, an effect that was particularly significant for women. In an attempt to go one step further in evaluating the program's impact on academic success, we assessed the impact on student retention in a four course engineering sequence. The Workshop Program itself consists of small, diverse groups of students meeting weekly to tackle conceptually-based, challenging problems related to their classes. The program aims to promote conceptual learning and high academic achievement using a collaborative environment and is optional and complementary to the lecture classes. Retention was evaluated based on completion of a 4-course required sequence that is a core component of the engineering curriculum. Logistic regression analysis was conducted using incoming math SAT to control for pre-existing differences in students academic ability. Results indicate that students in the workshop have a significantly higher probability of completing the four-course sequence. Findings indicate that a workshop program using undergraduate leaders is an appropriate model for increasing students' academic success in freshmen undergraduate engineering courses.

Mentoring engineering students

2020

The paper outlines the importance of making necessary improvements in engineering education to keep up with the high-speed changes in the Information Era. For the instructional process to be more efficient, and to increase quality in higher education, the academic community is extensively making huge efforts to create meaningful learning opportunities. In this approach, it becomes vital for the university professor to go beyond his traditional role of the sage on the stage and assume a more complex one, that of a mentor, the guide on the side. A general framework of this transformation, surveyed in this work, serves as a window to understanding its impact on mentorship. Recent research generally confirms that mentoring relationships are tailored to facilitate personal and professional development of both student and mentor. This explains why the mentoring forms within engineering education have been provided here, so that all participants in this exercise become aware of their role ...

Informal Peer-Peer Collaboration, Performance, and Retention for First Semester Engineering Students

2020

She will receive a PHD in Education Leadership, Foundations and Human Development from the University of Louisville in May 2014. She has held positions in engineering and management for Axxess Technologies, Varian, Amoco and Corning, and has taught in industry, at community college and at the graduate and undergraduate levels. Her research interests include engineering student performance and retention, and how to best teach work skills throughout the engineering curriculum.