Work in progress: First-year engineering college students: Value created from participating in a living learning community

This Work in Progress paper examines how to capture the perceived value obtained from first-year engineering college students (FYECS) from participating in the Engineering and Innovation Residential College (EIRC), a living learning community (LLC). People are social by nature and thrive through collaborating and living with others who share similar passions; however, oftentimes FYECS do not have a community of like-minded peers where support, innovation, discourse, and collaboration can take place. Adding to FYECS struggles is the fact that many do not have a mentor in their related field and are unable to start building their professional repertoire, network, technical skills, or their content knowledge related to engineering. Simply put, many FYECS do not identify with a community. The EIRC can be described as a Community of Practice (CoP) where a group of individuals have a shared vision, mutual engagement, shared repertoire, and joint enterprise. The Value Creation Framework, constructed by Wenger, Trayner, and de Laat [1] focuses on assigning value which can be produced through social learning. This theoretical framework can be used as an analytical tool to evaluate the value created within the Community of Practice such as the students living in the EIRC.