Advanced level of teaching can prove to be daunting for various students taking college courses, however, El Camino’s Supplemental Instruction program helps to remove apprehension in students and supplant assurance.

SI is an academic assistance program that utilizes peer-assisted study sessions which is offered here at EC.

Luis Barrueta, Supplemental Instruction coordinator, said “SI was birthed in the early 70’s at University of Missouri-Kansas City and began at El Camino in the summer of 2002 to offer academic support with demanding classes.”

“The SI coach is a student who has successfully passed the class that they’re coaching and now works in partnership with the instructor to help students with academic support which plays out in the classroom,” Barrueta said.

The SI program began with a handful of classes, but since has grown, he added.

“The special thing about SI is after class twice a week for 50 minutes, the SI coach facilitates a group study session which is peer to peer; basically students helping students,” Barrueta said.

Elizabeth Schwartz, SI program assistant, said “the El Camino’s SI program started with four math classes: Math 23, Math 40 (2), Math 70.”

“This fall semester SI has 47 sections and has maintained 45-50 sections for the past few years in different courses such as Anthropology 1, Art 141, Astronomy 20, Biology 10, Chemistry 20, Geology 1, Political Science 1, Psychology 5 and various mathematic courses,” Schwartz said.

The program has plans to begin SI sessions for accounting, economics, and philosophy classes, Schwartz added.

SI has proven to help students much more so than their counterparts that don’t attend SI, according to the SI spring data sheet.

“Last semester was actually the most utilized semester for SI that we had,” Barrueta said. “About 45 percent of the students in the classes attended regularly.”

According to the SI spring data sheet, “the national’s average is about 15 percent of students attend SI regularly.”

“The strategy owes part of its success to the increased time students spend studying with other students in their groups,” he added.

Former SI student turned SI coach, Lori Ishigo, 22, pre-enginering major, relished over her experience as an SI student.

“The coach would do a lot of study group work, mock quizzes, and also mock exams which were very beneficial,” Ishigo said. “Without SI, I probably would have struggled.”

SI coach, Angela Appel, 23, geology major, credited the SI program for not only being helpful to students but also helpful for SI coaches.

“Every time I sit in the lecture with the SI class, I learn more than when I took the class which helps me as a coach,” Appel said. “The really cool thing is that I’m considering being a teacher for geology so being a SI coach has kind of shown me that I do well in front of people and I can explain things really well so that the students can understand.”

Students now have a bridge to fill the seemingly large gap between them and professors through SI. SI coach, Renate Boronowsky, 26, biology major, praises the SI program for this.

“We’re the person that is on the students’ side and the teacher’s side,” Boronowsky said. “We’re really good at making our students not only like the subject, but to see the teachers as people and not this big figurehead at the front of the classroom.”