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.
Currently don't have the resources to obtain and relfect on SI SLO's. Hoping with more resources available in the future, the SI program would be able to assess and reflect on SLO's in the future.
Supplemental Instruction data has consistantly shown that student who attend SI have higher success rates in SI supported classes than those who do not attend. SI helps the college obtain student achievement standards by increasing completion rates and helping students transfer.
Supplemental Instruction (SI) plays a key role in enhancing a culture of completion and academic achievement by supporting faculty and their students to help them progress toward achieving their goals. SI is also a tool to help students achieve goals for course completion, retention and transfer. SI strongly promotes and encourages student success. Students who consistanly attend SI create friendships, a sense of belonging, form study groups outside of class and typically enroll in classes together the following semester. The very nature of the philosophy of SI encourages student engagement and helps build up academic confidence. SI Leaders are strong students who develop a high level of leadership and facilitation skills during their role as an SI Leader.
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 piloted face-to-face tutoring for two online biology courses during the fall 2017 semester. We also provided online tutoring for these classes as well. Due to low usage for both modalities of providing support, we have discontinued providing this type of support for online courses. Net Tutor has proved to be a good resource for students.
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 support as well as dive 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.
Strategy 3 - Additional LRS support in CAS
An additional LRS is required to grow the SI program, educate faculty and students of the services provided at all Butte College locations, and oversee the highly-utilized workshops, SI and other services provided by CAS.
According to the "Here and Gone: 2016-2017 Enrollment Cluster Analysis" presentation by the Office of Planning, Reserach, and Organizational Development 9/14/17, enrollment in EDUC 310 is a significant predictor of student persistance across all clusters of the sample population. Students enrolled in EDUC 310 can access a variety of CAS services that support their success and completion, and persistance. At their core, CAS services help students develop academic confidence and the ability to identify and access availability of resources at Butte College and beyond. All the services and training of employees in CAS are built upon development of independant, transferrable skills in students and in the creation of a welcoming, productive academic environment to support students throughout their time at Butte College.
According to qualitative data collected in the "Completers and Leavers 2016" survey, use of CAS, along with SI, was one of the most-often reported strategies of successful completers. In additional completers' feedback, the report stated their input was "highly positive towards CAS."
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 | Personnel | $0.00 | $109,000.00 | ||
| Learning Resource Specialist | According to the "Here and Gone: 2016-2017 Enrollment Cluster Analysis" presentation by the Office of Planning, Research, and Organizational Development 9/14/17, enrollment in EDUC 310 is a significant predictor of student persistence across all clusters of the sample population. Students enrolled in EDUC 310 can access a variety of CAS services that support their success, completion, and persistence. At their core, CAS services (including SI) help students develop academic confidence and the ability to identify and access available resources at Butte College and beyond. All services and training of employees in CAS are built upon development of independent, transferrable skills in students and the creation of a welcoming, productive academic environment to support students throughout their time at Butte College. According to qualitative data collected in the "Completers and Leavers 2016" survey, use of CAS, along with SI, was one of the most-often reported strategies of successful completers. In additional completers' feedback collected, the report stated their input was "highly positive toward CAS." |
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| 2 | 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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| 3 | 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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