Assessment of Peer Mentoring of Teams in a First-Year Design-Build-Test-Communicate Class

Abstract

James Coller is an engineering graduate student at the University of Michigan where he also completed his B.S. in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering in 2017. He spent three years during his undergraduate education as an Instructional Assistant for a first year engineering course. His research interests include autonomous robotics for both land and marine environments as well as naval ship design problems. Mr. Magel Su, University of MichiganMagel Su is a current undergraduate student at the University of Michigan studying materials science and engineering with a minor in chemistry. He is also a member of the engineering honors program, an instructor for a first-year engineering design course, and a researcher in the Yalisove Lab Group. Assessment of Peer Mentoring of Teams in a First Year Design-Build-TestCommunicate Class AbstractPeer mentoring has been associated with beneficial outcomes in higher education, from increased retention of minority students [1] and women [2] to learning gains for both mentors and mentees [3] . Most of the peer mentoring relationships investigated in the literature are of mentors not tied to a specific course [e.g., 2 ]. This paper reports on how one section of a first year, intensive, projectbased learning class uses peer mentors to guide student teams throughout a design-build-test project in a first year engineering course.Our one-semester course is a four-credit combined technical and communication course. Students work in teams of four or five students to design, build, and test two underwater vessels (one an unpowered bathysphere, one a remotely operated vehicle [ROV]), as well as to report on those designs. Former students of the course participate as peer mentors, working directly with a single team to guide design decisions and provide feedback on all facets of the design and communication process.In Fall 2016, we conducted an assessment of our current peer mentoring system by surveying students and peer mentors. As all students in our section experience mentoring, we did not have a comparison group, but we did seek to understand the benefits and drawbacks of mentoring for both students and mentors. From this survey, as well as our experiences facilitating the course with peer mentors for eight semesters, we are able to report a few "best practices" for facilitating the peer mentoring experience in our context. Importantly, we find that both students and mentors benefit from the mentoring experience, enough to justify our efforts to manage it. We do note potential disadvantages of mentors, as well as possible ways to mediate these drawbacks. This report contains the results of the survey, as well as instructor conclusions on what aspects of the peer mentoring experience are most important for successful implementation.

Student Perceptions of Teamwork Support

“…Specific resources that peer mentors provide to students include but are not limited to: annotating examples of previous project designs and technical communication deliverables, attending team meetings outside of class time, rehearsing presentations with students, and giving advice on a range of topics from technical content to adjusting to life on campus. A previous study conducted on the impact of peer mentors in this course demonstrates that peer mentors are positively received by students; students report that peer mentors helped most with development of communication skills, facilitation of better teamwork amongst team members, and advice on non-course related problems [10]. Furthermore, peer mentors facilitate and enhance student learning by providing weekly feedback to faculty and staff.…”

“…Peer mentors have been shown to increase retention [13,14] as well as increase learning gains in the classroom [15]. Peer mentoring also has a positive effect on mentors themselves, who report developing skills in areas including effective pedagogy, communication, and leadership [16], and report feeling increased selfconfidence, interest in teaching, and appreciation for intellectual diversity after the experience [10,17].…”

“…However, most discussion of supporting teams is in the "pedagogical strategies" literature [1,7]. To our knowledge, there is little research on students' perspectives regarding these types of support or on outcomes from the implementation of these strategies; see [8][9][10] for some exceptions.…”

Gender Differences in Students’ Team Expectations and Experiences in Introductory Team-based Courses

“…Peer mentors have provided indispensable insight to the rest of the faculty on understanding struggling teams and ways to help teams that are more hesitant to ask questions to faculty and staff. For more information on the class peer mentoring and structure, see [20].…”

Using Student-faculty Collaborative Lectures to Teach High-level Hydrodynamics Concepts

“…In a first-year engineering course at a large Midwestern research university, remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) are used as a design project topic to teach fundamental engineering and communication skills. The course utilizes a design-build-test-communicate framework with the use of peer mentors [1,2] to coach students through what is often their first team-based course in their post-secondary education [3,4].…”