SI leaders provide academic support

Alex Velazquez ’20 sat in the back of an Economics 101 class last year, taking notes along with the other students in his row.

This was Velazquez’ second time taking the course. He’d already been through it once during the spring semester of his freshman year. He was back not to repeat the course but to serve as a Supplementary Instruction leader (SI).

“I am interested in teaching positions, specifically in the social sciences,” said Velazquez, an economics major. “So it was a really cool opportunity.”

The SI program began in 2002 as a pilot program with three SI leaders in the biology major. Today, there are eight courses with SI leaders from biology, accounting, math, chemistry, economics and physics. Each semester, 25 to 35 leaders are assigned to different classes.

SI students go through a selective interview process and have to meet certain requirements to make it into the program, according to Allie Flick, SI coordinator for fall 2018. That interview process includes a “how to” piece that asks students to explain an activity they enjoy and teach it.

Kris Goldberg, director of the Office of Learning Resources, said professors also help to choose potential SI leaders.

“We do a little bit of the legwork for the professors in that we pull everyone they’ve had in the past couple of semesters that would be eligible based on that criteria,” Goldberg said. “Then we send those lists to professors and ask them to nominate students from there.”

Nancy Fox, associate professor of economics, was a professor who pushed to obtain an SI student leader for her Economics 101 class. She said that finding an extra resource for students is important, because she feels that her class can be challenging.

“Economics is hard for students” Fox said. “I was telling one of my upper-level students that I was doing my best, and I felt like it wasn’t enough.”

Fox was able to appoint Velazquez as an SI leader for her Economics 101 class, and he is currently the only one assigned to the economics department.

“Any resource that we can have that can help the students is a positive thing,” Fox said.

One challenge SI leaders face is striking a balance between their own school work and the work needed to prepare for the sessions they hold. SI leaders attend lectures, prepare hour-long study sessions that are held two times a week, as well as review sessions around test times.

Mary Kate Dougherty ’19, a biology major and SI leader for Biology 101, has been part of the program since her sophomore year.

“It just becomes a part of the background,” Dougherty said. “It gets ingrained in your schedule, and you just get used to it.”

For many SI leaders, the course lectures they attend serve as a refresher in some of the basic concepts taught in these classes, useful not only in their teaching as SI leaders but in their own studies.

“It is a really good review for anyone who plans on taking an MCAT like myself,” Dougherty said. “The basics of biology have been so helpful.”

Velazquez also said he has benefitted from going back to the basics in economics.

“I haven’t taken [Economics 101] in like a year and a half,” Velazquez said. “I had built upon those fundamental ideas but haven’t touched some of those ideas in a long time.”

Accounting major Victoria Francesconi ’20 said the relationship between an SI leader and a student is similar to a sibling dynamic.

“I’m just there as an older sibling or a friend that tries to help teach in different ways to help them understand the material,” Francesconi said. “It’s all about being on the same playing field and trying to get on the same page so they understand.”

Ultimately, being passionate about their subjects helps SI leaders make the material easier for others to understand.

“Being an SI is a really fun job if you enjoy the subject you are teaching,” Dougherty said. “There has to be some aspect of the job that you are passionate about in order fully commit to the job.”