A program that offers additional help for students in selected courses is looking to grow, as long as money can be found for the expansion.
Supplemental Instruction is a program that offers peer-assisted study sessions twice a week for selected courses. The program was implemented at SIUC in 2001 to help improve retention and persistence.
Lisa Peden, coordinator of Supplemental Instruction, said the program is currently offered in 17 courses. Peden said courses with an SI component are selected by the percentages of D's, F's and withdrawals from the previous semester. If SI received more money, Peden said, the program could expand to 30 or 40 courses that have shown a need for the additional instruction.
Peden said the program has received some additional funding in the past through
Student Affairs, but greater expansion of the program is going to require more. Peden said she has looked into grants, but is trying to find the funding elsewhere, as the grants are not a continual source of funding.
Peden said the existing budget allows her to hire 12 to 14 student leaders per semester.
"There are some institutions that have hundreds of SI leaders in hundreds of courses," Peden said. "We definitely could expand."
Larry Dietz, vice chancellor for Student Affairs, said the program is based on peer collaborative learning, meaning students help students.
The data is pretty clear, Dietz said. Students who participate in an SI component of a course generally do better than students in the same course who do not participate in the program.
Brad Veeck, a junior from Johnsburg studying accounting, said he started as a student leader this semester and has attended the additional study sessions in the past. Veeck, an SI leader for Accounting 230, said the program provides students with an 0additional outlet for questions and help, especially if they don't feel comfortable talking to the professor.
"I think they can relate to me more than a professor," Veeck said. "I've taken the class, I know what's expected to get through it."
Peden said in addition to study sessions, the program offers academic coaching, which provides individual assistance in any course, as long as there is an available student leader to provide coaching.
"That's really what it's all about," Peden said. "Trying to get help to the students who want the help."
Madeleine Leroux can be reached at 536-3311 ext. 268 or mleroux@siu.edu.
