Student Participation Guidelines

SI creates a fun, collaborative learning environment where you actively work with fellow classmates to assess your understanding, deepen your knowledge, and grow your skills within your SI-supported class and beyond.

In order to make sure SI maintains these qualities, it is important for you to be aware of the following participation guidelines.

• SI session/office hour attendance is anonymous to the instructor. Learning is often a messy process, and SI sessions are a safe space for that messiness. So, we want you to be free to learn without worrying about your grade or being evaluated. But we do need you to fill out a session attendance form, so we can show UVM how successful our program is overall.
• SI leaders will not re-lecture or give out copies of their notes. SI leaders are only effective if they are going beyond what you get from lecture. In sessions they will be giving you instructions for interactive activities that help you explore class materials, and they will ask you questions to guide you when you need some extra help. Their notes won’t be much help to you because they are written from the unique view of the SI leader, but they would be happy to help you improve your own notes.
• SI leaders want you to come to sessions regularly. SI is most effective for those who come regularly throughout the semester. SI leaders don’t want you to face the headache that comes with cramming. SI is built to go through the messy learning process one chunk at time, so it really won’t help you at the last-minute stage. Your SI leader will welcome you at any point in the semester, but they will be more confident in their ability to help you if you come early and come often. Even if that means you can’t come to all of the sessions every time.
• SI leaders don’t help students with assigned homework. SI leaders are all about knowledge and skill building, so they won’t help with specific homework questions. But they would love to assist with the concepts or example problems in their sessions. SI leaders are sometimes available to tutor you in the course for which they are serving as SI leader, but we usually have a lot of tutors ready to provide one-on-one help at the Tutoring Center; just email tutoring@uvm.edu or schedule sessions through Navigate.