Meeting Students Where They Are: A Guide for Creating and Implementing a Supplemental Instruction Program at a Community College

Higher education has undergone significant transformation over the last several decades. Not
being immune to this transformation, community colleges have drastically shifted their missions from
being primarily focused on access to missions that balance access and success. To put their new
missions into practice, community colleges have implemented programs aimed at increasing student
success, retention, persistence, and completion. This evolution of the community college mission has
also coincided with a major shift in the way in which community colleges are funded. The previous
funding model being enrollment based is quickly disappearing and making way for the new funding model
focused on outcomes and performance. These changes have caused community colleges to implement
programs that produce results while also requiring either a minimal investment of resources, produce a
high return on investment, or both.
One such program, one that has proven to be a best practice since its inception in the 1970s is
Supplemental Instruction. Supplemental Instruction has proven to be a best practice that can have
positive impacts on student’s success, retention, persistence, and completion. Additionally, Supplemental
Instruction may also have a high return on investment, if implemented with growth in mind.
This dissertation will present a step-by-step practical guide for how a community college can
implement a successful and sustainable Supplemental Instruction program. The approach offered in the
guide was developed as a result of testing two previous versions of Supplemental Instruction at a
community college in Ohio. These two different approaches, the subsequent lessons learned, and the
data that was gathered, will be presented prior to the guide as a means of providing the reader with
context around how the steps in the guide were chosen.