Using Peer-Led Team Learning to build university-community college relationships

Through support from the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT), the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) and the El Paso Community College (EPCC) began a program to collaborate on adoption of Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL) at EPCC. The NCWIT-funded effort aims to transfer this effective retention practice to the EPCC in order to establish early connections with female students, create community, and provide activities that improve students´ problem-solving skills. PLTL provides an active learning experience for students and creates leadership roles for undergraduates. For the peer leaders, the experience of working with faculty and guiding their peers through a challenging course is rewarding, and they learn communication, teaching, leadership, and interpersonal skills. Peer leaders become more confident about their career path,= and many continue to be involved in the department through undergraduate research positions. This is important for retention and advancement efforts, since the peer-leading experience influences the students´ motivation to attend graduate school. This paper describes how the UTEP-EPCC partnership was structured, how the practice was transferred, and the challenges that were encountered. It also presents the evaluation results.