Walmart Initiative Improves Student Success at UNM

The high fail­ure rate in many intro­duc­tory courses can have ram­i­fi­ca­tions beyond the class that can derail a student’s future. “We need more sci­en­tists and engi­neers to solve the seri­ous chal­lenges the world faces, and this is where they start,” said Sushilla Knot­ten­belt, vis­it­ing assis­tant pro­fes­sor of chem­istry who teaches Chem­istry 121 at the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico. “It’s essen­tial that we don’t turn them away at the first hurdle.”

Chem­istry 121 now has the high­est pass rate since records have been kept. Knot­ten­belt and 11 other instruc­tors par­tic­i­pated in the Wal­mart Minor­ity Stu­dent Suc­cess Ini­tia­tive at UNM, a national project focused on improv­ing stu­dent suc­cess in large-enrollment, lower-division courses that present obsta­cles to stu­dent reten­tion and grad­u­a­tion. Sci­ence, tech­nol­ogy, engi­neer­ing and math­e­mat­ics or STEM gate­way courses are often the biggest hur­dle stu­dents have to jump. Gary Smith, prin­ci­pal inves­ti­ga­tor for the Wal­mart ini­tia­tive and direc­tor of UNM’s Office of Sup­port for Effec­tive Teach­ing, said Knottenbelt’s efforts under the ini­tia­tive took Chem­istry 121 off of UNM’s list of courses with prob­lem­atic pass rates in one semester.

The project worked pri­mar­ily with math and sci­ence fac­ulty to replace lec­tures with a more col­lab­o­ra­tive, learner-centered form of edu­ca­tion. Stud­ies have shown that bal­anc­ing lec­tures with time for stu­dents to col­lab­o­ra­tively problem-solve, develop projects or respond to short assign­ments with class­mates can improve grades and retention.

The Wal­mart ini­tia­tive trans­formed large lec­ture rooms and audi­to­ri­ums where stu­dents tra­di­tion­ally learn only pas­sively into active, col­lab­o­ra­tive learn­ing com­mu­ni­ties where stu­dents learn from each other as well as from the expert instruc­tor and under­grad­u­ate peer-learning facil­i­ta­tors, who receive inten­sive pre-semester train­ing and weekly train­ing dur­ing the semester.

Par­tic­i­pat­ing instruc­tors said that they were bet­ter con­nected to their stu­dents and that atten­dance improved in collaborative-learning class­rooms. Most instruc­tors in the one-year project saw improve­ment in aver­age grade, and some sec­tions also improved in the per­cent­age of stu­dents com­plet­ing the course and the per­cent­age earn­ing an A or B grade.

Sur­vey responses show that stu­dents felt they learned more work­ing with class­mates and peer learn­ing facil­i­ta­tors than they would have by lec­ture alone. Sur­veys also show that while all stu­dents per­ceived greater learn­ing in a col­lab­o­ra­tive learn­ing envi­ron­ment, that pref­er­ence was greater among first-generation col­lege students.

The pro­grams begun through the Wal­mart ini­tia­tive have con­tin­ued and expanded under the umbrella of the Project for Inclu­sive Under­grad­u­ate STEM Suc­cess, or STEM Gate­way, which received a five-year grant for $3.8 mil­lion from the U.S. Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion. The goal is to move STEM Gate­way toward becom­ing an insti­tu­tion­al­ized pro­gram at UNM.

Going for­ward, STEM Gate­way has four com­po­nents: cur­ricu­lum reform for gate­way sci­ence and math courses, peer-assisted col­lab­o­ra­tive learn­ing, STEM stu­dent inter­est groups and data-based deci­sion making.

See the Insti­tute for Higher Edu­ca­tion Policy’s news release for more infor­ma­tion on the national Wal­mart Minor­ity Stu­dent Suc­cess Initiative.

Media Con­tact: Sari Krosin­sky, (505) 277‑1593; email: michal@unm.edu