Assessing the Impact of a Multi-Disciplinary Peer-Led-Team Learning Program on Undergraduate STEM Education

Abstract

There has been a national call to transition away from the traditional, passive, lecture-based model of STEM education towards one that facilitates learning through active engagement and problem solving. This mixed-methods research study examines the impact of a supplemental Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL) program on knowledge and skill acquisition for students in introductory biology, chemistry, calculus and applied statistics courses. Results indicate program participants reliably outperform their matched pairs in courses that emphasize quantitative reasoning. Moreover, program participants report acquiring important insights about learning, collaboration, and engagement in undergraduate STEM education. These results are consistent with previous findings on PLTL and also provide insight into the roles of course context and student population on program outcomes.

Improving students’ ability in learning mathematics by using the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) approach

“…STEM-based learning helps students understand how to design a method (technique) through analyses and based on mathematical data calculations (mathematics) to find solutions to problems (Akiha et al, 2018). STEM approaches refer to a framework that includes (Carlson et al, 2016;Jensen et al, 2017;Blecking, 2018): (1) identify learning and (2) predict student behavior. Both can be modulated by various interventions and multiple STEM retention initiatives.…”

“…Effective learning methods are used in the learning process in today's era, wherein teachers have various selections of learning methods they can use on the students in order to effectively and efficiently achieve the learning objectives (Carlson et al, 2016;Theobald et al, 2020). One of the key aspects is the issue of how teachers create an active atmosphere.…”

“…Here is an overview of the integrated approach model. Introducing students to the interrelationships among all STEM subjects from a young age and inviting students to apply those linkages for solving problems in the real world will require students to work more actively (Carlson et al, 2016). Therefore, supporters of STEM education are increasingly enthusiastic about successfully supporting and continuing to develop the nature of interrelationships among all STEM subjects.…”

“…STEM is a modern approach used as a communication and information technology applied to mathematics learning (Changtong et al, 2020). 10.3389/feduc.2022.966687 The approach taken by integrating STEM aspects is carried out to see the extent of students' critical thinking ability and learning motivation toward effective learning methods (Carlson et al, 2016). The STEM approach is a current approach taken to change students' abilities (Blecking, 2018).…”

Toeplitz Inverse Covariance Based Robust Speaker Clustering for Naturalistic Audio Streams

“…PLTL is a student-led STEM education paradigm popular in US universities for undergraduate courses. Each session has 6-8 students plus a peer-leader who direct the discussions for collaborative problem solving among students [29]. CRSS-PLTL corpus [6] is a collection of audio recordings from five groups studying an undergraduate chemistry course over 11 weeks.…”