Increasing the Success of Lower Division Undergraduate Students through the Use of Common Teaching Tools

This paper describes the development and use of common teaching tool, the Construction Industry Simulation (COINS), at Hartnell College community college and in the lower division undergraduate level at Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo designed to increase the success of community college transfer students and lower division undergraduate students.A partnership built through the use COINS seeks to educate civil and construction engineering students at the lower division and to introduce students to core engineering fundamentals that form a basis for the knowledge on which they can build in upper division courses and at the same time increase interest and excitement about engineering by incorporating project-based learning early in the curriculum.The benefits for students include better preparation of students, as demonstrated by increasing deeper understanding of project controls and constructability issues, for upper division coursework by implementing project planning and control systems engineering design and implementation, realize an increase of 25% in the retention of students who currently transfer from engineering to other non-engineering majors prior to commencing upper division coursework, and increasing the number of transfer students to civil and construction engineering programs at 4-year institutions.This paper describes the proposed collaboration and work between Cal Poly and Hartnell College community college to utilize common teaching tools and increase the success of lower division undergraduate students and community college transfer students.