The project RDE-DEI: Developing and Evaluating a Peer Led Team Learning Curriculum in Calculus and Chemistry for Undergraduate Students with Learning and Attention Disabilities is a $100,000 dollar award funded by the Research in Disabilities Education (RDE) program's Demonstration, Enrichment and Information Dissemination (DEI) track. The primary goal of this project is to improve the academic outcomes for undergraduate students with learning and attention disabilities in gateway calculus and chemistry courses by implementing the use of an adapted peer led team learning (APLTL) program. This program includes a peer mentoring program to help students with course content to improve student understanding and knowledge of specific academic materials and to help students by employing strategies-based instruction to improve executive function skills, particularly in the areas of organization, problem solving, reading comprehension, flexible shifting of actions to meet task demands, and persistence towards a goal. This project builds on the successful work already conducted by the team, at Washington University's (WU) Center for Advanced Learning (CAL); with the cooperation of WU's academic departments the CAL's staff have already created academic bridge and peer led team learning programs for students without disabilities in STEM.
The team from WU, which is lead by a psychologist who is also a WU Assistant Vice Chancellor and the Director of the CAL, includes experts in post-secondary disability services, faculty and staff with expertise in college calculus and chemistry education, and an expert in post-secondary learning services for students with learning and attention disabilities. The proposal includes a quasi-experimental design to compare the calculus and chemistry performance of approximately 40 students with learning and attention disabilities who participate in the APLTL program, to the performance of a cohort of similar students enrolled in the same courses who do not participate in the program.
The project directly addresses the RDE-DEI track goals by enriching the academic experiences of students with learning and attention disabilities in post-secondary calculus and chemistry courses, and by demonstrating the effectiveness of a highly specialized mentoring program within a private undergraduate institution. There is a formative and summative project evaluation plan which is being conducted by a WU internal evaluator, Larry Handlin, who is the CAL's Assistant Director for Evaluation. There is also a dissemination plan which includes web-based materials for university faculty and staff to develop similar STEM APLTL programs at other campuses, publications in peer-reviewed professional journals, and presentations at the annual convention of the Association for Higher Education and Disability, the annual University of Connecticut's Post Secondary Training Institute, and the annual RDE PI meeting.
