2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Recent studies have shown that the average retention rate at US engineering schools is 56%, and as much as 20% lower for underrepresented minorities. More notably, about 40% of STEM students end-up switching their majors to non-science and non-technical majors, 50% drop out of physical and biological sciences, and 60% drop out of mathematics programs. During the 2020-2021 academic year within a Southwest School District, the district from which a large R1 institution and a community college draw most of their undergraduate students, only 21% of high school students were proficient in math. These numbers were exacerbated for Latinx students who are overrepresented at Title I schools with less access to experienced math teachers and advanced math course offerings. Among barriers to STEM degrees, deficiencies in mathematical skills have been considered the major contributing factor to STEM attrition. A major step to address these challenges will be to bridge the gap between high school preparation and expected standards of engineering and science majors. The work reported here focuses on a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded project aimed at improving fundamental math skills of pre-engineering students, at a large R1 institution, University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV), and at a community college in the Southwest, College of Southern Nevada (CSN). For UNLV and CSN STEM majors, addressing math proficiency gaps for high school graduates is critical. Therefore, there is a need to devise innovative math remediation methods that are more engaging, effective, and less costly to students. UNLV and CSN faculty of mathematics, engineering, education, and computer sciences have joined forces to make a difference on this front. They have developed conceptually-rich Canvas applications and associated exercises to demonstrate the application of fundamental math concepts in engineering. The Canvas applications use placed-based pedagogy and focus on a large metropolitan city in the Southwest as the place where engineering is in action with its magnificent buildings and attractions and its beautiful surrounding arid environment. Two Canvas applications, “Dig-it up” and “Ready-Set-Jump” were developed to demonstrate the application of arithmetic operations in Civil and Mechanical engineering. In addition, a set of practicing exercises were developed, using scaffolding pedagogy, to accompany the applications. The applications are being tested in the current co-requisite model used by UNLV and CSN for precalculus math to determine if these applications can assist students aspiring STEM majors with mastering fundamental math principles.
This research was funded by the National Science Foundation, Grant #2225226.