A Peer-Assisted-Student-Support Scheme to Enhance Student Outcomes and Foster Inclusivity, Self-Confidence and Motivation

Enhancing Active Learning in Large Core Engineering Courses: Strategies, Evidence-Based Insights, and Challenges

This article explores the integration of active learning strategies within large, required core courses in undergraduate engineering education, drawing on a case study of a faculty member teaching a Statics and Strength of Materials course to more than 200 students each semester. The focus is placed on pedagogical adaptations, logistical complexities, student participation, and institutional support systems required to make active learning successful on a scale. The study discusses the design and implementation of various techniques such as group hands-on challenges, discipline-specific problems, model demonstration, in-class exercises, and recitation sessions, while critically assessing their impact on student engagement and academic performance. It also highlights barriers including classroom space constraints, time limitations, resistance to change, and the need for ongoing faculty development. Practical recommendations are provided for scaling these approaches and building a sustainable support structure for educators, with the aim of fostering deeper learning and greater student engagement in large engineering courses.

A Near-Peer Mentoring Framework for a CEE Curriculum: A Case Study

Many innovative pedagogical strategies, such as near-peer mentoring, have been developed to address challenges of the first-year college curriculum. Near-peer mentoring involves upper-level students mentoring lower-level students and has been shown to improve student outcomes, such as increased sense of belonging, increased confidence in abilities, and enhanced academic and professional growth. However, many of these programs primarily focus on the mentee and often overlook the mentor. Additionally, these programs can have high barriers to entry and may require extensive administrative support and infrastructure, especially for large classes. This paper presents a curriculum-level near-peer mentoring framework with the goals of (1) enhancing both mentors’ and mentees’ sense of belonging and identities as engineers, and (2) improving the quality of mentees’ semester-long team project solutions, conclusions, and final products. This framework was applied to a large first-year civil and environmental engineering (CEE) course with more than 210 mentees and uses more than 165 mentors primarily from fourth year CEE courses. Mentees and mentors were paired according to similar interests, and each pair met five times during a semester. After each mentoring session, both mentees and mentors completed mirrored surveys about their experiences. Both mentors and mentees somewhat agreed that the near-peer mentoring created a stronger sense of identity as a civil engineer, an increased sense of belonging, and higher quality project solutions, conclusions, and final products. Both groups rated the mentoring experience as beneficial with average self-reported scores of 3.7 out of 5, and both groups believed they helped their counterparts make connections with each other and to the project. Overall, this novel curriculum-level near-peer mentoring framework will allow all students to gain the many benefits of mentoring, and it scales well without additional faculty/teaching assistant (TA) resources.

Community-Engaged Learning for Student Success

Community-engaged learning (CEL) with undergraduate students is a high-impact practice (HIP) which can lead to student success in a variety of dimensions, including in the labor force. CEL can enable students to confidently demonstrate the knowledge and skills that they learn in their majors. We describe three different models for incorporating research-based CEL into our work with students. Beyond providing opportunities to gain and apply skills and perspectives, we argue that helping students thoughtfully reflect on the skills and experiences they have from their training and from CEL projects increases their success in college and their readiness for the job market. CEL can be challenging to implement so we provide lessons learned for each of the models we describe.

Learning How to Measure STEM Student Critical Thinking Through Undergraduate Research Engagement Across a Three-Institution Consortium

Undergraduate research is a high-impact practice associated with positive student outcomes, including improved retention, graduation rates, and post-graduation success. It is also linked to gains in intellectual skills, such as critical thinking; however, these gains are typically inferred from student self-reports and faculty observations rather than direct measurement. A key challenge is the lack of robust methods to directly assess critical thinking development through undergraduate research experiences in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). To address this gap, the Learning Environment and Academic Research Network® (LEARN) Consortium was established across three institutions. The consortium implemented a year-long, faculty-mentored research experience through two parallel programs: one for underrepresented first-time-in-college (FTIC) students and another on Associate of Arts (AA) or Associate of Science (AS) transfer students. To directly measure changes in critical thinking the consortium employed a pre-post assessment design using two instruments: 1. the Critical Thinking Assessment Tool (CAT©) and 2. STEM writing assignments evaluated with a specifically designed critical thinking rubric. Results from the CAT© indicated gains in critical thinking for both FTIC and transfer cohorts, with statistically significant gains for the FTIC students at two institutions in two of the three years. Similarly, rubric-based evaluations of STEM writing, showed gains for both cohorts, though these were not statistically significant. This article examines the challenges of directly assessing critical thinking, including issues of rubric development, and shares lessons learned from implementing and evaluating this transferable undergraduate research model across three different institutions.

Using guest lectures to enhance student employability: pedagogical considerations

Enhancing Engagement and Learning Through Incentivized Low-Stakes Quizzes in Large Engineering Classes

Extensive research highlights the benefits of active learning and frequent low-stakes assessment in improving student engagement in STEM education. However, large undergraduate engineering courses often rely on passive lecture delivery, limiting opportunities for meaningful participation and peer interaction. This study explores whether integrating brief, collaborative, in-class quizzes accompanied by a modest collective incentive (1% bonus if the class average exceeds 80%) can foster greater student engagement in a large-enrollment second-year engineering course (ECE 250). Grounded in Bloom’s taxonomy and the ICAP framework (Interactive–Constructive–Active–Passive), this practice was implemented over a full academic term. Quiz participation and performance data, student feedback surveys, and teaching assistants (TAs) classroom observations were analyzed to assess impact. The results indicate increased classroom participation, peer discussion, and the frequency of student-initiated questions, along with positive student perceptions of engagement and motivation. These findings suggest that structured, incentive-based, low-stakes quizzes offer a scalable pedagogical approach for enhancing engagement in large lecture environments without adding significant grading burden, providing practical value for engineering educators seeking sustainable strategies to support active participation.