Biology major Manuel Cuellar and psychology major Salvina Turadzhikyan received the Collaborative Learning Scholarship for being named the year’s most outstanding Supplemental Instruction (SI) leaders out of 80 SI leaders on campus.
The award was been established eight years ago to honor SI leaders who demonstrated excellence and willingness to “go the extra mile and serve their fellow students,” said SI coordinator Ann Reed.
During his time as SI leader, Cuellar conducted workshops for Lin Griffith’s ESL 133 and 144 classes and for Keith Conover’s Biology 122 class. He often pointed out better ways of presenting the material and tried to find the best ways to teach each concept, said Griffith of Cuellar. In addition, Cuellar, who completed his third semester as SI leader, was very observant of each student’s academic needs and personality traits, said Reed. “It gave me the opportunity to develop my teaching skills,” said Cuellar.
Turadzhikyan who has been a SI leader for four semesters often often wrote her own exams for sections of each chapter, said Reed. “Sometimes she creates quizzes in the forms of games and passes out candy prizes for the best answers.” Turadzhikyan also frequently stayed beyond assigned workshop hours to answer students’ questions, said Reed.
“It’s nice to see how the students learn from it,” said Turadzhikyan. “It’s a really rewarding experience.”