Intervention programs for a freshman integrated curriculum

The Dwight Look College of Engineering at Texas A&M University (USA), through the Foundation Coalition, piloted learning environments and curriculum models based on four primary thrusts: integration of subject matter teaming and collaborative learning, technology-enabled education and continuous assessment and evaluation of methods and outcomes over a four-year period. In the fall of 1998 a variation of the model piloted by the Foundation Coalition was institutionalized. However, as with most piloted-then-adopted educational programs, a systemic and lasting change cannot be sustained unless all of the irregularities of student matriculation into and through the system are addressed. As part of the pilot program, an intervention strategy was developed to help facilitate students who did not meet the entrance requirement for participation. Not meeting the entrance requirement generally connotes a lack of something, but in this case it has much broader implication. Students not meeting the entrance requirement were found to fall into one of three categories: (1) those not having the minimum requirements; (2) those needing remediation in one or move subjects; or (3) those with advanced placement credit or credit-by-exam. Since the sum of all three categories represented a nontrivial percentage of the student population, an appropriate strategy for managing these students was necessary. This paper presents a variety of intervention programs that were implemented during the piloting of the integrated freshman curriculum. The paper presents assessment and evaluation of the intervention programs through the tracking of students' performance before and after involvement with the programs.