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Session 1453

Students Teaching Students: Engineering 100 Jonathan Dolle, Ray Price University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Abstract

This paper describes an orientation course every first year student entering the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign participates in during the first six weeks of class, fall semester. The program is unique in that it is entirely organized and taught by third and fourth year engineering students, each of which facilitates one or two sections of the course, known as Engineering 100. Although the sections group students by department, much of the material in the course covers other areas as well, ranging from campus health services to web page construction. This paper will first provide an overview of the content and structure of the Engineering 100 program from the perspective of a first year student, then from the perspective of a student facilitator, and finally from an administrative point of view. In addition, it is a goal of this paper to convey some of the educational philosophy that has driven this program forward over the last six years and, in our opinion, made it so successful.

Introduction

Each fall at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) over 1,100 new engineering students begin their careers as engineers. In their first semester, every engineering student participates in the Engineering 100 Program, which meets once a week for the first six weeks of the semester. Class sessions typically include icebreakers, team skills, interpersonal skills, introductions to campus computing facilities, web page design, use of UNIX operating systems, academic resources, international opportunities, department-specific information, and corporate speakers. In addition, this program is typically the first course students take with others from their department, and because of the small class size it also serves as a unique networking experience. The program replaced a more traditional faculty-run orientation program approximately six years ago.

The mission of Engineering 100, as articulated by the student facilitators of the course, is as follows:

Engineering 100 is a student directed program providing new engineering students with a head start in their educational and social development through an informal, dynamic, and fun environment which encourages learning, personal growth, and relationship building.

Entirely student run, the Engineering 100 Program is led by two student co-directors and a staff of 35-40 undergraduate engineering students, known as Engineering Learning Assistants (ELAs). In the early spring—roughly 7 months before the onset of the course—the two co-directors and a committee of former ELAs select and train the new facilitators for the coming fall. Once selected, the new team of ELAs complete 30 hours of intense training, redesign and update a 90+

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Price, R., & Dolle, J. R. (2000, June), Students Teaching Students: Engineering 100 Paper presented at 2000 Annual Conference, St. Louis, Missouri. 10.18260/1-2--8724