Supplemental Instruction Scheme

Abstract

The first year of university can be one of life's most critical transitions. To cope with this transition and challenge, students have to work together hand in hand to achieve common goal. Supplemental Instruction (SI) is a cooperative learning model aiming at enhancing students' learning motivation, academic performance as well as psychological outcomes, in which students can seek for peer support and enhance their learning journey to succeed and transform in the years of university education. First initiated in the US in 1973, SI is currently being adopted in over 700 institutions of over 27 countries. To help students cope with the studies better without labeling them as weak students, SI targets at high-risk courses instead of high-risk students. Trained SI leaders, who themselves achieved high grades in the targeted courses, will provide regularly scheduled, peer-facilitated sessions which offer SI students an opportunity to discuss and review course information under the close monitoring of course teachers. At City University of Hong Kong, thousands of students have already benefited from such cooperative learning sessions since the establishment of Learning Enhancement Centre (LEC) in 2001. To expand this nutritious learning model so that more students can benefit from the scheme, this proposal seeks funding to support the institutionalization of the project to benefit at least 800 students of around 15-20 courses in 2006/7 (for UGC funded courses only); including four major FB first year core courses (namely, AC, EF, MS and IS).