{"id":5792,"date":"2016-12-05T13:46:10","date_gmt":"2016-12-05T19:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/?p=5792"},"modified":"2016-12-05T13:47:51","modified_gmt":"2016-12-05T19:47:51","slug":"supplemental-instruction-leaders-pass-along-study-skills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/2016\/supplemental-instruction-leaders-pass-along-study-skills\/","title":{"rendered":"Supplemental Instruction leaders pass along study skills"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"sz_siphotos_1148-e1410097261495\"<\/a>Student leaders in Supplemental Instruction (SI) are valuable to Southern Arkansas University as they pass their experience in \u201cchallenging\u201d courses along to those who need help academically.<\/p>\n

Rachel Jenkins, SI coordinator, said leaders in the program are hand-picked by faculty for an important job: helping students better understand difficult subjects, in a group setting. \u201cIt\u2019s all about retention,\u201d Jenkins said. \u201cOur SI leaders help students deal with not only difficult content but develop good study habits and strategies, give them insider tips, and help them get to know other students in their class. They create a sense of community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ashley Westbrook, a senior majoring in Agriculture Business, of Hope, Ark., said she attended SI sessions as a freshman and is now a session leader herself. \u201cMy SI leader really helped me get through the class,\u201d she said. \u201cI needed to learn how to explain things in the detail my professor expected. I had to learn how to take notes and key in on topics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Westbrook now passes those skills along to students who attend her sessions. SI leaders take problems similar to those found in homework and discuss them in a group setting so that students grasp the concepts, formats and theories of difficult classes. They teach students how to listen, take notes, and evaluate issues. Many freshmen need help studying on a university level. SI leaders are selected by faculty because they have taken and exceled in such courses \u2013 often because they took advantage of SI sessions themselves.<\/p>\n

<\/a>

Rachel Jenkins<\/p><\/div>\n

SI is a series of weekly review sessions available to students who want to improve their understanding of challenging course material and get better grades. Attendance is voluntary. Jenkins said data shows that students who consistently attend SI earn a higher grade and have a higher GPA upon graduation. The program has been available through Student Support Services for more than 15 years. Faculty members are invited to allow SI leaders to sit in on difficult classes, take notes and develop lesson plans for sessions.<\/p>\n

Jenkins said faculty has been great about participating in the program. \u201cThey are very supportive of the SI model. They have seen the effects of SI, the boost in confidence students get from sessions. They talk about not only the important information that leaders share, but the really great study tips, the organizational tools and note-taking skills students learn.\u201d<\/p>\n

Westbrook praised Dr. Pierre Boumtje, professor of agriculture economics, for his support of SI. \u201cIt\u2019s important that I have a faculty member who recommends SI and praises SI leaders,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Westbrook said that on the first day of classes, she will stand up and introduce herself to students, letting them know she is a \u201ctrusted resource\u201d who has taken the course before and passed it with an A. She also lets them know about SI and how they can participate. In sessions, she conducts discussions or Q&A periods or reviews vocabulary. \u00a0Classes are 50 minutes long, and \u201c30 to 40 minutes are usually spent on actual application problems or deep-thinking analysis,\u201d she said. \u201cThe last few minutes of the session, I\u2019ll summarize what we\u2019ve discussed or predict test questions, so that they can think about (the professor\u2019s) process.\u201d She leads two sessions per week in the Agriculture building.<\/p>\n

\u201cI map out lesson plans for each session,\u201d Westbrook said. \u201cI am the facilitator. I have things for the students to do, a process for them to follow. I cover both the teaching style and the subject. Trying to mold a student\u2019s understanding of the topic is a challenge. A lot of them come for that purpose \u2013 they want clarification of what\u2019s expected.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said she has 10-20 students who attend consistently; closer to test time, \u201cmore will file in for review.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jenkins said SI leaders \u201cexpect students to work with other people, to toil with the material, because that\u2019s how you learn it.\u201d She goes to Freshman Seminar classes and lets students know about SI and what it offers. \u201cI tell them to go expecting to work. In most cases, they don\u2019t do homework in sessions \u2013 there are few sessions where homework is even allowed. They do similar problems, quizzes, study guides \u2013 activities designed to help ensure that students understand the content. We\u2019re helping them help themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

By observing classes, SI leaders \u201care more aware of what\u2019s going on than the students themselves. They see that most students don\u2019t take notes, aren\u2019t engaged, aren\u2019t present,\u201d Jenkins said. SI leaders notice that many times students don\u2019t even have textbooks. \u201cThey encourage them to buy those books and bring them to sessions,\u201d Jenkins said.<\/p>\n

Feedback is given by students and faculty and leaders are rated. \u201cReports are posted and sent up the chain,\u201d Jenkins said. \u201cMost people find SI leaders to be very helpful. I got lots of feedback from students saying, \u2018I wouldn\u2019t have passed the class without help.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said that in describing SI to freshmen, she asks students to think about their previous experience \u201cworking in groups. \u2018Are you thinking about your high school experiences where you\u2019re sitting in someone\u2019s living room and not really accomplishing much? If so, I recommend you give this a try. You\u2019re studying with someone who\u2019s taken the class before and done well. You\u2019ll walk away knowing what you know and what you don\u2019t know and given tools to master the content you are struggling with.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Working in groups allows students to \u201cbounce ideas off other people and discover new ways of studying. It\u2019s sometimes helpful to hear content presented in multiple ways. Sometimes another student will say things in ways that resonate differently. Students will share their study tips \u2013 \u2018this is how I remember this.\u2019 Other students might have information in their notes that you didn\u2019t get.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most importantly, Jenkins said, SI allows students to get to know each other, share phone numbers, and study together outside the sessions. \u201cOur goal is to retain students,\u201d she said, \u201cbut ultimately, we want students to be autonomous. That\u2019s the dream \u2013 you don\u2019t need SI anymore. You know your study skills and you\u2019ve got your cohort. You can do it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Student leaders in Supplemental Instruction (SI) are valuable to Southern Arkansas University as they pass their experience in \u201cchallenging\u201d courses along to those who need help academically. Rachel Jenkins, SI coordinator, said leaders in the program are hand-picked by faculty for an important job: helping students better understand difficult subjects, in a group setting. \u201cIt\u2019s… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":564,"featured_media":5795,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[271,94,32641,7753,143],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5792","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-academics","8":"category-admissions","9":"category-featured-layout","10":"category-homepage","11":"category-student-life","12":"entry"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/564"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}