Aim for success: peer-led team learning supports first-year transition to college-level mathematics

Abstract

Students graduating from high school in the United States are often underprepared, unaware of, and surprised by the rigors of college courses, especially mathematics, and consequently stumble in their first year. A pilot intervention, the Academic Inventory Module (AIM) for Success in Mathematics project, at a minority-serving institution was offered to incoming freshmen students, which included a nine-hour mathematics preparation course and participation in a peer-led workshop in their first mathematics credit-bearing course. The goal of the AIM project was to establish a seamless pathway from high school to college learning of mathematics through the Peer-Led Team Learning model of instruction. The principal activities of the project were to offer a bridge program preparing students for a combined algebra and geometry course and to create a peer-led community to support freshmen enrolled in the course. Results from this study showed students participating in peer-led workshops had significantly higher grades and lower failure and withdrawal rates than those who did not participate.

Keywords

• collaborative learning
• first-year college students
• intermediate algebra
• Peer-Led Team Learning
• transition to college
• underrepresented minorities.