The Supplemental Instruction Embedded Tutors (SIET) program was recognized as the Innovation of the Year, and the recipients of the 2013 Innovation of the Year Award are the individuals who have been most involved in the innovation, maintenance, and improvement of the program: Libby Corriston, professor and director of the Math Resource Center, and Kathryn Byrne, associate professor and director of the Writing Center. The award is sponsored by the League for Innovation in the Community College.
The SIET program is a means to embed peer tutors in developmental and gateway courses such as MATH 171 (College Algebra). These tutors model effective student behavior in class sessions, mentor students who have questions about the material being covered, and give students another venue for getting assistance both inside and outside of the classroom.
SIET tutors also host unique study sessions outside regular class meeting times, which focus on real-world problem solving, and a more thorough exploration of topics that are most challenging to students. The SIET tutors are a low-cost option for the college to enhance the student experience at JCCC by providing another layer of support for students in the formative stages of their college career, and they have helped realize 15-20 percent gains in retention and persistence in target sections.
In the JCCC mathematics department, the initiative began during the fall of 2010, when Steven Wilson and Bill Robinson worked with Libby Corriston to embed tutors and supplemental projects in their College Algebra classes to try to improve conceptual learning. Kathi Lefert joined the initiative the following spring semester. Taking what was learned from those experiences, Libby Corriston led the charge to make improvements in the initiative and to carefully match tutors with professors in both College Algebra and Intermediate Algebra classes. Other faculty joining the project include: Nancy Carpenter, Justin Dunham, Elise Fischer, Donna Helgeson, Linda O’Brien, and Cathleen O’Neil. Lisa Cudd helped with the coordination of the initiative and provided advice as some Learning Strategies concepts were incorporated into the tutoring sessions. JCCC mathematics tutors who were involved include: Zach Ayres, Aaron Bretton, Jeff Lewis, Carol Shepard, Josh Smith, and Thomas Parra. Tutors and instructors continue to talk about the positive experiences that have come from closely working together to try to improve student learning.
