A Learning Community for First-Year Engineering Courses

Abstract

A learning community has been established for first-year students in the Department of Engineering at Colorado State University -Pueblo. Two engineering courses were linked by shared homework assignments, a robotics lab and periodical faculty meetings. A survey was developed and administered before and after the robotics lab to evaluate students" satisfaction and the knowledge gained. The results show an improvement in students" satisfaction of the overall experience. The effect of the learning community on students" learning and retention was also assessed. The positive effect of the established learning community was confirmed through higher passing rates and improved retention.