Taking the teacher out of the classroom: Supplementary-Instruction Peer-Assisted
Taking the teacher out of the classroom: Supplementary-Instruction Peer-Assisted Study Sessions as student support
Victoria Grace Walden
Outline
For a long time, remedial study skills programmes have proven ineffective (Ruth Talbot Keimig 1983), but tutor-led workshops about reading, presenting and writing are often still the norm. As a study skills convenor providing these types of sessions, I often sat in an empty classroom, or had to adapt learning experiences designed as group workshops into one-to-one or one-to-two tutorials, “on-the-fly”. This article discusses a pilot supplementary-instruction peer-assisted study session scheme (SI-PASS) that ran at the University of Sussex in 2018-19. It was designed to support first year students on a Media and Communication BA degree. The aim of this SI-PASS pilot was to consider how research into peer-assisted and active learning might enable us to offer subject specific study support provision that is well attended and helps a wide range of students in contrast to the much under-used remedial sessions we had previously offered. I will discuss how this scheme was setup, before exploring the successes and difficulties of the programme as assessed at the pilot’s mid-point.
What is SI-PASS?
SI-PASS stands for Supplementary-Instruction Peer-Assisted Study Sessions. It is one of a growing number of internationally-developed Peer-Assisted Learning (PAL) schemes. Whilst PAL is an umbrella term for a wide range of student-to-student relations from tutoring and mentoring to coaching (Alexander Olaussen et al 2016), SI-PASS is a specific scheme that was introduced by Deanna Martin for the University of Missouri in Kansas City (UMKC) in the 1970s. Its basic premise is that newer students can be supported by those who have progressed slightly further in their studies to develop independent learning skills through the students in the higher years coaching and leading them to problem-solve in groups. Here, we can see the shared values that SI-PASS has with active learning. The latter involves students questioning more than listening to instructions, and working in a collaborative environment in which they try to address real problems without a designated leader (Robert L. Dilworth 2010). What could be a more ideal active learning environment than one in which students work together to tackle problems that they identify for themselves from their own study experiences in a learning environment in which the professional ‘teacher’ is removed altogether?
Martin’s SI-PASS scheme was based on three key principles:
- There are ‘at risk courses’ not ‘at risk students’
- Slightly more experienced students are the best influencers for new students given they can empathise more closely with the latter’s experiences than staff
- Collaborative learning helps students to problem solve most effectively.
(Leif Bryngford 2018)
Many empirical studies of SI-PASS programmes evidence that Martin’s principles have been enacted. Perhaps th