Study Guides?

[surfgirl87]

I didn't know where to put this so I figured the TA section would be good.  I adjunct teach at a community college for science classes.  This is my first semester doing so, and as such I am sure I am making at least a couple of mistakes.  While I was given the books and someone else's syllabus, I have to come up with lectures, quizzes and exams (not a problem).   It has been brought to my attention that my students expect a study guide for my exams, that there is "too much information" that I expect them to know.  I let them make up points after the exams by giving half credit for every correct answer they can give me for every originally wrong question.

Are study guides the norm now a days?  I don't remember EVER having a study guide in UG or HS for that matter!  I don't want to cave (because its just like 2 students out of 26), but is this really what happens in colleges now?  We spoon feed them information?

Do any of yall give out study guides?  If so, are they exactly what is on the exam? Or are they like an outline of your lectures?

[shadowclaw]

Not an instructor but have TAed before... as an undergrad, I did occasionally get study guides. Sometimes they were just bulleted lists of terms and concepts to know, other times they included questions from previous exams. Study guides were definitely more common in lower level courses, too. Last year, I TAed for a freshman biology lab, and the lab manual came with a study guide in it. Mostly it was a bunch of questions for students to answer to prepare them for lab exams, but weren't really the same as what was on the exam since it was a practical. The lecture for the class had a massive study guide filled with questions and diagrams... while not the exact questions on the exams, they were similar. 

Personally, I don't think study guides are necessary, but they do help, especially if it is a mass lecture where students do not have the opportunity to ask a lot of questions. On the other hand, almost none of my science professors gave out study guides and students generally did fine. One thing my general chemistry professor did was have a review day before the exam where we could ask all the questions we wanted. Another professor played geology jeopardy with us to review for our final.

Unless there is some college requirement to provide study guides, use your own judgement. If it's only 2 students begging for a study guide, then the real problem is that those students don't know how to study.

[rising_star]

Honestly, I would give them a study guide. It is common in lower-level courses these days, especially at community colleges and less exclusive institutions. You don't have to make it incredibly detailed but should provide them with the key terms/concepts (even if that's really just you typing out a bunch of stuff that's in bold in their textbook). You could also make it into a class activity or homework assignment where you have them try to write a study guide or exam and then help them see what's missing it. Doing it that way will actually probably help them study the material better.

[bhr]

Jeez, when I did undergrad if I asked for a study guide I would have been told to see the syllabus and my notes.

[Guest]

I give my students study guides in my literature classes, but only because I found that the answers I got back WITHOUT giving them study guides were too depressing to read. 

The professor I TA'd for used to get around the problem of possible spoon-feeding by just giving them a huge, exhaustive list of authors, terms, and literary movements in alphabetical order. He didn't provide sample questions or definitions or anything like that. He just told them that they were responsible for all the terms on the list, and if they had questions they should be prepared to ask in recitation. The study guide was basically useless if you hadn't actually gone to class, paid attention, and taken notes. 

Edited October 29, 2015 by my_muse

[MonstersU-Terp]

Give them a study guide if you want but they shouldn't expect one. If they are being inundated by so much information that they simply don't know what to focus on, that's an issue with the class structure. Maybe the lectures are covering more material than can be reasonably expected on one exam; maybe there needs to be more exams so that each exam is more focused. I would personally say that they should choose between having a study guide or getting the opportunity to earn extra credit. Like you said, they shouldn't be spoon-fed. It's not your responsibility to make things easy for them, college isn't supposed to be easy.