What is Online Supplemental Instruction?

OSI is a series of out-of-class sessions led by a student who has taken the course OSI is offered in successfully. 

Outreach's OSI program targets courses, not students.  While all students might not take advantage of the voluntary opportunity, it attracts an equal proportion of students from differing ability and cultural groups. OSI does not segregate students based on prior academic performance or predictions of academic success. In fact, OSI works best with heterogeneous groupings of students.

There are many benefits of OSI for faculty and students. To read about these please go to: http://http://www.uwyo.edu/learn/si/benefits.html

The OSI Leader Serves as a Model Student

The OSI leader functions as "model student" of the discipline rather than authority figure. OSI leaders help students formulate and answer their own questions. This process helps students develop a more sophisticated approach to learning while maintaining the focus on content mastery.

OSI Sessions Integrate Content and Learning Skills

The OSI sessions integrate the review of lecture notes, textbook readings, outside supplemental readings along with appropriate modeling of learning strategies. "How to learn" is embedded into OSI sessions along with "what to learn." Through practice and mastery of effective learning strategies, students can adopt and transfer these strategies to other subjects and content areas. Collaborative learning strategies are used in OSI sessions as a means of creating a more active learning environment for student participants.

How does OSI work at a Distance?

Outreach OSI sessions are conducted in real-time via a web-conferencing program. Nothing is installed on the student computer and there are capabilities of audio, video, screen-sharing, white board and other tools.

OSI participants indicate that the synchronicity of the activity is one of the things that is most appealing to them. 

Want more information?

OSI is based upon the SI model used by the LeaRN Center on campus. For more information and the background of this program please visit LeaRN, http://www.uwyo.edu/learn/si/

For more information please contact:

Christi Boggs

307.766.4238

cboggs@uwyo.edu