Supplemental Instruction
Mission Statement
The mission of the Supplemental Instruction Program is to provide course-embedded academic support for historically-difficult classes to help improve course grades, retention, and graduation rates.
Program Goals
- Support academic success and student development
- Foster collaboration between students, faculty, and administration
- Include program components which reflect best practices in peer support
- Respond to students’ training and professional development needs
- Provide quality support for a variety of academic areas
- Foster personal responsibility and accountability for learning
- Assist students in transferring learned skills and strategies to their academic work
- Provide a service that enhances and supports classroom instruction
- Ensure SI Leaders reflect the diversity of the student body
Frequently Asked Questions
Supplemental Instruction (SI) is a free, voluntary service that provides peer-led study sessions for specific challenging courses. Our SI leaders are model students who have previously taken the supported class and done well. We will help you succeed by helping you build effective studying techniques and creating collaborative activities to improve your understanding of the material discussed during the lecture.
Supplemental Instruction Leaders are students who have previously earned a B or higher in their supported course. For their supported class, they will attend each lecture and take notes. Their role is to host peer-led study group sessions every week and design collaborative activities to help you understand how to study crucial lecture concepts and prepare for exams.
Rigid scientific research suggests that students tend to receive one letter grade higher than usual if they attend supplemental instruction sessions. Below is a list of the many ways you may benefit from this program:
● Develop study and learning strategies
● Meet your peers to expand your professional social network
● Solve practice problems
● Improve understanding of important concepts
● Collaborate with peers to actively engage with the material
● Develop organizational tools
● Assess your understanding of the material before examinations
- Every May, we begin our referral process: SI Leaders are referred by faculty or staff, current SI Leaders, or self referrals. Interested students complete and submit the Interest form.
- After submitting the Interest form, selected candidates will be scheduled for a 30-minute group interview during the summer.
- If selected for the position, students attend a required 2-day training in late August where they will learn about campus resources, services and support offered by the Office of Academic Success, and tasks and responsibilities of the SIL position.