Supplemental Instruction
This is an example of a learning activity carried out in a course at KTH. During the course, meetings were held based on the concept of Supplemental Instruction (SI). Older students who have taken the course before held the meetings and helped the students discuss the material together.
Supplemental Instruction complements regular teaching
The course is one of the first courses in an engineering programme, and for several years there had been problems with many students not passing the course. Because of this, Supplemental Instruction (SI) was introduced as an opportunity to get extra support in their studies. Supplemental Instruction is a method that has existed in the university world for a long time and is used by several courses at KTH. SI works as a complement to regular teaching and course activities, where the purpose is for the students to receive support in learning the course material, finding new insights, and deepening their knowledge in the field.
SI meetings regularly during the course
During the course, there were scheduled SI meetings that were optional for the students to attend. The idea was that the meetings would create a platform where the students helped each other in their learning. Participating students worked towards the course's learning outcomes through, among other things, discussions and collaborative exercises with the support of SI-leaders. It was important that students were active during SI-meetings.
Support from older students
The support came from older students who had previously taken the course and completed training to become SI-leaders. The SI-leaders then brought their own experiences into the design of the SI meetings. The SI-leaders did not have an active role in the rest of the course, but they needed to communicate well with the teachers of the course to achieve continuity between the course's activities.