Student engagement, active participation, and collaborative thinking are often absent from the traditional college lecture model, especially in a mathematical or technical course. Such one-way lectures also do little to assure students that they are learning at a pace consistent with class expectations, or that their ideas and participation are welcomed and valued. In this study, we compare the traditional lecture model with collaborative concept mapping, an interactive activity where students work together to create a node-link diagram that organizes ideas and visually demonstrates relationships between them. We collected a total of 60 survey responses from 19 UMass students in a statistics course, which included quiz questions about course material and opinion-based questions assessing perceived sense of belonging, self-efficacy, and exerted effort in class. Students were asked to complete the survey after four class sessions, with two taught primarily through lecture and two through a collaborative concept mapping exercise. The data will be analyzed through mixed models to measure the association between concept mapping and higher academic performance, as well as stronger senses of belonging and self-efficacy. The findings will help to improve teaching techniques and course designs of college-level statistics courses, as well as help future students in statistics courses learn more effectively and feel more comfortable and confident in class.