Creating Higher Level Study Guides
Goodwin and Hubbell (2013) remind us that we as educators should peel back the curtain to make our expectations clear. Wiggins and McTighe (2006) suggest that we should build our lessons with the end in mind. Does this mean that students should be able to see the end of year/unit summative assessment to use as a guide? The simple answer; yes, but no. Let me explain.
Being clear about what is being assessed is very important. Teachers should, in precise ways, clearly articulate expectations to students and what it looks like when those objectives are met (Goodwin & Hubbell, 2013). So it would stand to reason that if the ultimate summative assessment of those objectives was a test, that to give the students the test up front in the form of a study guide would do just that. Students could see exactly what information was needed and how it should be regurgitated on the test. This would, in fact, be very useful for the student that is needing to complete work on the bottom of Bloom’s taxonomy. In the graphic below from Vanderbuilt (2016), in the base of the pyramid we see the tasks that would best be suited by this plan. Students could duplicate, list and memorize using the test study guide as a template.
There are many situations in which this would be a handy tool, especially in the field of elementary education. In an elementary setting, students often need to repeat and memorize information since it forms the basis of moving to understanding in this taxonomy. The question remains then, are these study guides only for that basic level of the taxonomy? Or can a guide based on the summative assessment be valuable for a higher order level of understanding?
Study guides themselves are useful tools. Study guides “...enable students to draw upon their existing knowledge to assist them in formulating meaning from the text, are constructive, dynamic (affective and cognitive), and interactive tools” (Hollingsead et al., 2004, p. 57). The use of study guides has been linked to percentile growth in several studies with some gains in the 70th and 80th percentiles (Hollingsead et al., 2004). However, simply giving students the answers to the test in a different format, in this case a study guide, could be argued only to be at the bottom level of the taxonomy regardless of the style. So this couldn’t be the type of study guide that is described in the quote above. Simply memorizing an answer can’t truly be a dynamic interactive tool. Not to mention that effective study guides are personal to students and their learning styles (Thurler, n.d.).
Kasey Short (2019) gives a great metacognitive method for students to create their own study guides.
First students answer questions about the content that will be on the assessment or review questions created by the teacher.
Students then individually write down or draw everything that they know about the topic from memory. This should be done in regular pencil. A digital version of this would be typing everything they know in black text.
Students are then put into groups and discuss what they wrote down or drew on their papers. As the group discusses, students write down information from peers that they didn’t have in new colors. Again, digitally, this could look like adding new ideas in new text colors to your doc or sharing docs as a group to get the new info onto your study guide. During this time, the teacher walks the room looking for gaps or misunderstandings.
Ask the students what they should be studying for the assessment. Many will say that they should study the information in black, but remind them that this is info that they already knew. You can celebrate that fact. Tell them that the info on their page that is in different colors are things they need to spend more time on when preparing for the assessment.
Students take one more look at the review questions and determine what they need to add to their study guide.
In this way students will be able to have the use of a study guide that will be more like the dynamic and interactive one mentioned by Hollingsead et al (2004) and also get the content that you want them to see without handing them a copy of the test to memorize. Hopefully, this leads them up the pyramid to understanding and not just remembering.
References
Goodwin, B., & Hubble, E. R. (2013). The 12 touchstones of good teaching: a checklist for staying focused every day. ASCD, McREL International.
Hollingsead, C. C., Ostrander, R. J., & Schilling, J. (2004). Study Guides: Teacher Tips: A Review of Literature with Practical Implications. Language Arts Journal of Michigan, 20(2), 57–64. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1234&context=lajm
Short, K. (2019, July 17). Study Strategies Beyond Memorization. Edutopia. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/article/study-strategies-beyond-memorization
Thurler, P. (n.d.). How to Create a Successful Study Guide. Herzing University Blog. Retrieved from https://www.herzing.edu/blog/how-create-successful-study-guide
Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. (2016, Sept. 6). Bloom’s taxonomy [Image file]. Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/vandycft/29428436431
Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2006). Understanding by design (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.