Message
Hello
folks,
My apologies for
raising a point at this morning's breakfast and then having to dash off. I
had a 9:00 meeting.
Janet had asked me
about Supplemental Instruction (SI), which is something that EOP has done for
their students over the years. This model is one that is used to bring the
extension activities that students need and expect to those in classes that are
taught in the large-lecture format.
Learning in any
discipline entails different cognitive skills than courses in other
disciplines. Learning math, for example, requires that a student be able
to conceptualize abstract ideas and express them in numbers. That's very
different than learning in history, where one learns about historical events,
their causation and the results thereof. Although it is unfortunate, some
students don't know how to study and learn on their own the materials from
lecture courses. What's more, many don't realize that the way they
approach learning math is not sufficient for they way they approach learning
history. SI is designed to give students an opportunity to think through
how they're approaching learning in a specific course. SI can be peer or
professional-led.
There are a number
of "formulations" of SI, some more valuable than others, I would
posit. I am not an expert on the matter at all, but David
Arendele is a writer who has done quite a bit of research on the SI model of
instruction. This is an article he has written that gives an overview of
how SI works: http://www.tc.umn.edu/~arend011/SIoverview94.pdf.
I think of SI as akin to the
recitations that some of the science courses
include. Basically, SI is a way to allow students to learn
cooperatively in smaller groups, extending what they
learned in class. SI can potentially provide some of the learning activities
that students have come to expect in their learning environments, such as
in-depth discussion, group activities, etc. It is promising, I
believe. The CADE staff has discussed many times how they'd like to
provide SI, but CADE had never been staffed to provide such additional services
(in addition, that is, to professional tutoring, developmental courses, and the
coordination of peer tutoring). With its tutor training program now in
place, however, it wouldn't be completely impossible for CADE to provide
trained SI leaders for classes if the campus were to choose to do so using
peer SI leaders.
Incidentally, CADE
does offer a course called PROF 120: College Learning Strategies, which,
although not tied to another course as SI is, spurs students to think about
their thinking. It compels them to look at their approaches to learning in
their various courses and plan for how they can engage with the material in
meaningful ways -- taking into consideration the context in which college
learning happens, from the classroom to the social scene. Students love
the course (although they usually note that it has a lot of work involved with
it) because it helps them really consider themselves as learners -- their
history, their proclivities, their weaknesses, their goals. It carries the
WS2 General Education attribute as well.
So, those are a few
things I was thinking when I threw out the Supplemental Instruction idea.
I, too, really appreciated hearing from Steve. The NSSE
data gives us a lot to think about with how first year courses are conducted and
perceived.
Amy
Amy Crouse-Powers
Senior Staff Assistant
Division of Graduate Studies, Continuing Education,
Summer Sessions & Learning Support
SUNY College at Oneonta