After a successful pilot in 2022, the Center for Student Success at SUNY New Paltz expanded the Supplemental Instruction (SI) pilot program, which helps students succeed in courses that are known to be challenging for many of their peers.
The international academic support program delivers a unique approach to peer tutoring in historically challenging classes. Each section has a designated SI Leader–a New Paltz student who has already completed the course–to work closely with both the instructor and Center for Student Success staff in planning and facilitating group sessions for current students.
The SI Leader will shadow the class, and then meet with a group of students to walk them through challenging concepts in the course.
To learn more about how the program works in practice, we checked in with Joseph Arias ’23 (Computer Science), SI Leader in Assistant Professor Ashley Suchy’s Computer Science II (CPS 210) course, about the experience of working with a past pupil to instruct peers in a class he had already completed.
“After a couple of sessions, I saw that the students were grasping the material quickly,” said Arias. “I see that the students are retaining information a lot easier through this program.”
“There’s definitely a difference in before they were attending and after,” said Suchy. “This is a good opportunity for students who can’t always make it to a professor’s office hours.”
This success story demonstrates the vision Kristen Fanfarelli, director of the Center for Student Success, had for the program when she started overseeing it last year.
“I was excited to pilot Supplemental Instruction at New Paltz because the group structure of SI gives students a chance to connect with one another and build community around their academics,” she said. “Beyond that, SI has an excellent track record for retention and grade increases.”
Data shows that course sections with SI support deliver, on average, a 13% reduction in failing grades and course withdrawals. Students who attend SI regularly (three or more sessions) average a half-letter grade to a full-letter grade benefit over students who do not attend SI.
For fall 2023, SI sessions will be offered in the Statistics for Business and Economics I (BUS309), General Chemistry I (CHE201), Precalculus (MAT 181), Calculus I (MAT 251), Biology I (BIO 201) and Computer Science I (CPS 210).
Click here to learn more about the Center and its peer-to-peer services
