How to Make a Study Guide

Give students a study guide to help them prepare.

Study guides are a useful tool in helping your students prepare for an exam. The physical act of completing a study guide helps the students to remember important details they will need to know for the test. This is also provides students with a template for making their own study guides in more advanced classes.

Instructions

1. Study your lecture notes and highlight the key points that you want students to understand well. Make a list of these key points.

2. Cover only the most relevant points. Creating a 10-page study guide defeats the purpose of having the students not just remembering the points, but understanding them. Students will become restless, bored and overwhelmed if the study guide is too long.

3. Vary the delivery of questions. To reach diverse learning styles amongst the students, consider adding a wide variety of question formats. Use true/false, multiple choice, short answer and concept mapping when making your study guide.

4. Double check that all the answers can be found by the student without too much difficulty. All the answers should be able to be looked up by going to the table of contents or the index of their textbook.

5. Keep a list of the page numbers where the answers can be found. This allows you to quickly locate the answer if a student has a question.

6. Save your study guide on your computer for future use.

Tips & Warnings

• Consider using the study guide as the actual exam. Those who actually completed the study guide will be ecstatic and those who blew it off will be kicking themselves.

References

• Purdue University: Making and Using Study Guides to Prepare for an Exam