Supplemental Instruction (SI)

Supplemental Instruction (SI) is a peer-facilitated learning enhancement model designed to impact the way students learn difficult content in a specific course. The SI model was developed in 1973 at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and has been implemented in a variety of educational settings nationally and internationally. SI targets traditionally difficult academic courses—those that have a high rate of C, D, and F grades, and withdrawals--and provides regularly scheduled, out-of-class, peer-facilitated sessions.

In English SI program at ELAC, an SI Leader is assigned to a course section of English 101. The SI Leader attends the class to keep up with the course content and models effective student practices and attitudes. The SI Leader schedules and conducts two structured sessions a week. During these sessions, the SI Leader engages students using interactive learning strategies, which encourage involvement, comprehension, and synthesis of subject content. The goal for the SI program is to help students to become independent learners.