2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This work is an Evidenced-Based Practice Paper. Peer Led Team Learning (PLTL) involves a peer leader who facilitates active learning sessions with a small group of students. The intent of the PLTL is to assist in the learning of various topics and concepts introduced in a course. PLTL has been a successful peer support intervention in traditional classroom environments in science, technology, engineering and mathematical (STEM) education. This National Science Foundation (NSF) sponsored work under the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) program seeks to investigate the effectiveness of PLTL in an online campus environment at a unique, private university recognized for offerings in aerospace and aviation-related degrees. Peer leaders are recruited from, and have achieved success in, various undergraduate courses that have historically proven difficult for students in completing their engineering degree. Those courses include statics, dynamics, digital circuit design, and aerodynamics. Selected peer leaders then receive a 10-hour self-paced training program which includes providing effective feedback, online communication techniques, leadership strategies, and active learning techniques. A large student population of this online campus are either military veterans or currently serving military personnel. This demographic characteristic results in a larger percentage of military and veteran students both serving as peer leaders and as students participating in the program. This work examines how military service influences student willingness to serve as a peer leader, how military and veteran peer leaders perform, and how military and veteran students respond to peer leadership. The intent is to leverage military and veteran leadership experience to better improve the training of peer leaders to facilitate learning for all students. It also provides a great opportunity to witness veteran students assisting other veteran students to succeed in their education.