Butte College’s Supplemental Instruction (SI) Program is designed to build peer-led academic support communities of higher-level thinkers and self-empowered learners. This self-selecting, course-specific, peer-led academic support program seeks to promote active, collaborative learning involving critical thinking and transferrable study skills. Its efforts are aimed at improving the retention rate of students enrolled in the SI-linked courses and helping students pass these courses at a higher rate.
Supplemental Instruction (SI) is an academic enrichment program that is offered in historically challenging courses (high rate of D, F, and withdrawals). SI is a core support service offered in the Center for Academic Success (CAS). SI is designed to supplement – not replace – class lectures. SI discussion and review sessions are facilitated by trained student SI Leaders who have already completed the course. SI sessions are interactive and collaborative. Students who attend sessions learn to integrate how to learn with what to learn. It's a chance for classmates to get together outside of class to compare notes, to discuss important concepts, and to develop strategies for studying the subject in a structured environment.
Office Assistant - CAS was funded 2016/2017 by Student Equity
The employee in this position was able to complete the back log of data entry for SI attendance. This data can now be used for reporting SI data accurately. We were able to run data to determine if students on the dashboard were utilizing SI support if it was offered in their classes. The data informed us of that African Americans, Multi-Ethnic students, Males and Foster Youth were not utilizing SI support when offered in their classes. A marketing plan to increase these dashboard student usage in the SI program has not been created. This employee also set up a pilot of using iPads to input SI attendance data in real time. This process inprovment will save time and hopefully minimize error in the future. The employee who was hired was unable to complete the iPad pilot due to the need for full-time employement.
As a result of participating in SI study sessions, students will:
- Develop critical thinking skills that mature beyond memorization in a way that enables them to evaluate, analyze and demonstrate evidence of their learning
- Increase their understanding of course concepts and be able to apply them to different sets of problems and to understand how concepts from different disciplines connect
- Acquire transferrable study skill behavior which will allow students to become more confident in their approach to mastering future difficult material
- Engage in a culture of connectedness and inclusiveness during the course of an SI session
As a result of participating in SI, student leaders will:
- Develop creative thinking skills as they design lesson plans around various learning styles
- Develop professionally by improving their oral and written communication skills as they explain concepts and organize activities
- Build their leadership skills as they facilitate group participation and collaboration
The SI program supports course success and completion in the courses where SI support is offered. Data shows students who attend SI are more likely to pass their class in comparison to students who do not attend SI sessions. SI Coordinator works closely with departments to allocate limited funding to courses where the students will benefit and where data shows results of success of attendees.
For the 2017-18 academic year, the SI program can continue to support the strategic initiatives of enhancing retention, course completion and transfer in the following ways:
Spring 2015 was our last program review in CAS. Recommendations include:
CHC and GCC support: Due to lack of resources, the program hasn't been able to expand SI course offerings at off-site locations. With the addition of a support staff person, this would allow the coordinator time to travel between campus locations to work with both the faculty and SI Leader.
Online support: We are planning on offering face-to-face support for an on-line biology course in fall 2017 if a qualified student is available.
Broader marketing: We'd like to provide more outreach to students on the dashboard who were not utilizing SI resources. Again, lack of resources has not allowed this to happen.
Strategy 1 - Special Programs Clerk to support SI Program
This includes hiring a full-time Special Programs Clerk (11 months) to provide support for successful Supplemental Instruction Program.
The Supplemental Instruction (SI) program serves an average of 500 students with over 6,000 hours of SI support each semester. There are 15-25 SI Leaders each semester with a turnover rate of 50-80% each year which means a large part of the coordinators time is spent on training, observing and evaluating SI Leaders. The year that SE funded a program support person, we were able to increase program effeciency and attendance. While the number of students who have access to SI hasn't increased, the number of students participating in SI has increased by 10%. This increase is due to having assistance with the day to day operations of running the SI program (training, troubleshooting, marketing, logistics).
Using our data, we were able to determine the folloiwng students on the dashboard are not using SI support when offered in their courses: African Americans, Multi-Ethnic students, Foster Youth and Males. Further time needs to be allocated to increase marketing efforts for these specific populations to improve their attendance and success rates.
Additional support would also allow time to address accreditation recommendation to support off-site locations with SI, address accreditation recommendation for on-line SI support as well as diving deeper with SLO's specific to SI.
Strategy 2 - Classroom space for SI sessions
Due to the high demand of SI, study sessions for large lectures have higher attendance (15-35 students per session) so bigger classrooms are needed to hold SI sessions. Currently in CAS, there are only 3 classrooms large enough for bigger sessions and one of these is shared with EOPS/Power Center. This makes it challenging to schedule several study sessions during peak hours (10am-2pm). Additionally, many students like to attend SI sessions in the evening at the Chico Center. Space is limited at the CHC as well between 6-9pm. It is difficult to increase SI support to large lecture classes when there is no where to hold SI sessions for students. More classroom space needs to be made available in order to increase the amount of courses with SI support.
Additional large classroom space is necessary to fully support SI at the main campus and at the CHC. There is a need for evening space particularly as students highly utilize general CAS services as well as SI in the evening and these are conflicting needs for our CHC 230 space. The program could effectively use space at the Skyway Center, if available.
The Physical Science department has asked if the SI Program would like classroom space in the new building. We hope to be included on future planning discussions for the potential for SI space in a different building outside of the CAS space. This would allow for more large lecture classes to be supported.
We have tried other funding sources (SE, SSP & Basic Skills) and it's not a good fit for the Supplemental Instruction Program.
| Original Priority | Program, Unit, Area | Resource Type | Account Number | Object Code | One Time Augment | Ongoing Augment |
| Description | Supporting Rationale | Potential Alternative Funding Sources | Prioritization Criteria | |||
| 1 | Supplemental Instruction (SI) Program | Personnel | 11.000.750.1.611000 | 52120 | $0.00 | $58,000.00 |
| Special Programs Clerk | The Supplemental Instruction (SI) program serves an average of 500 students with over 6,000 hours of SI support each semester. There are 15-25 SI Leaders each semester with a turnover rate of 50-80% each year which means a large part of the coordinators time is spent on training, observing and evaluating SI Leaders. The year that SE funded a program support person, we were able to increase program effeciency and attendance. While the number of students who have access to SI hasn't increased, the number of students participating in SI has increased by 10%. This increase is due to having assistance with the day to day operations of running the SI program (training, troubleshooting, marketing, logistics). Using our data, we were able to determine the folloiwng students on the dashboard are not using SI support when offered in their courses: African Americans, Multi-Ethnic students, Foster Youth and Males. Further time needs to be allocated to increase marketing efforts for these specific populations to improve their attendance and success rates. Additional support would also allow time to address accreditation recommendation to support off-site locations with SI, address accreditation recommendation for on-line SI support as well as diving deeper with SLO's specific to SI. |
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| 2 | Classroom space for SI sessions | Facilities | $0.00 | $0.00 | ||
| Due to the growth and increasing attendance of SI sessions, additional classroom space is needed on the main campus and outlying centers. | Due to the high demand of SI, study sessions for large lectures have higher attendance (15-35 students per session) so bigger classrooms are needed to hold SI sessions. Currently in CAS, there are only 3 classrooms large enough for bigger sessions and one of these is shared with EOPS/Power Center. This makes it challenging to schedule several study sessions during peak hours (10am-2pm). Additionally, many students like to attend SI sessions in the evening at the Chico Center. Space is limited at the CHC as well between 6-9pm. It is difficult to increase SI support to large lecture classes when there is no where to hold SI sessions for students. More classroom space needs to be made available in order to increase the amount of courses with SI support. |
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