I do something a bit different with study guides - I have them write them for up to 10 extra points (my grading system is out of 1000). They can pass in any form of study guide as long as it covers at least ½ of the concepts per chapter that we're testing over. They also have to be in the student's own words - they can't just type out the definitions from the text. I've seen some pretty creative ones like "books" made of construction paper with pictures and hand written notes etc. Sadly the data from doing this for 3 years has indicated that a) the students who don't need the points do the study guides; b) students who do study guides don't necessarily do better on exams than students who don't; c) allowing them to create study guides may actually make them feel that they have learned something when in fact they are not able to apply the random bits of information they have learned. Since all of my students are not going to be socialites chatting about random facts at parties, they need to be able to apply what we're talking about. What I have been doing is giving them a list of learning outcomes per chapter (ugh, that dreaded phrase!!!!). Their first exam using the learning outcomes is tomorrow. If the results are...better (this class has been at 68 for 3 exams) I will share. If not...you guys get the point. :-)
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