What is the most difficult content? (Remember, important is not the same as difficult. There will always be important concepts that you will not have time to address in the session. If you try to cover everything, you will create students dependent on you for their knowledge. Instead, we would like to create independent students who can take the study skills they learn in SI sessions and apply them to their future courses.)
What strategies will work well with these concepts? (i.e. Note review, informal quiz, divide and conquer, think-pair-share, board work model, matrix, etc.) How much time do you expect to spend on each activity?
- Click here to be taken to our strategy card sets
How many students do you expect? What will you need to adjust in the strategies you’ve chosen depending on how many students actually attend? How can you be ready for students who are not prepared? (No book, no notes, haven’t read the book, etc.) Make those plans now.
What do you need to prepare to make these strategies successful? (i.e. Review your own lecture notes for a note review; write an informal quiz; divide a reading assignment for divide and conquer; select problems representative of important types to use for think-pair-share or board work model; form your own complete matrix; etc.)
What would you like to remind the students to study on their own?

Also consider these situations:

When one person dominates the conversation of the group.
When students are having side conversations.
When students interact only with the SI leader, but not with each other.
Every time you ask a question over the course content, the group becomes very quiet.
You have one student in the session that rarely talks.
If students become confrontational and suggest the sessions are a waste of time.
Students who typically do not show up for sessions are being shunned by those who do attend on a regular basis.

Planning Sheet Tutorial