Episode 19: Study Guides Aren’t Working (Here’s What Actually Does) | The Edu20/20 Podcast

Welcome back to the Edu20/20 Podcast… where we take the things we’ve all done in classrooms and actually look at whether they’re working.

This episode is all about study guides. We’ve all used them. We’ve all handed them out before a test. We’re talking through what’s actually happening when students “study” and why a lot of it doesn’t last.

This conversation gets into:
• What we’ve done (and seen) with study guides over time
• Why some approaches feel helpful in the moment but don’t stick
• What retrieval and repetition actually look like in real classrooms
• Simple ways to build stronger memory without adding more to your plate

Chapters:
0:00 Why we keep coming back to study guides
2:06 What we’ve seen (and done) in classrooms
4:32 What the research says about studying
6:29 A different way to approach review
9:27 Why students forget so quickly
11:25 Practical ways to build memory over time
13:12 What to watch for during review
15:31 A simple shift you can try

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Edu 2020 podcast. My name is Courtney. And I'm Shannon. And we are part of a larger group of educators that basically specialize in simplifying education. And so we travel all around and we support teachers and leaders in just maximizing not just your instructional materials, but also your teaching skills to make sure students are successful. But we on this podcast like to talk about all the nerdy things. We talk about not so nerdy things on the After Hours podcast. So if you haven't subscribed and liked to this podcast, I definitely 10 out of 10 recommend it. But we're going to be talking about some spicy things as always today. Shannon, you want to tell the people what we're going to be discussing?

SPEAKER_00 0:57

So yeah, I will try to keep my nerd tucked in, but we're going to talk about study guides today. I know. Study guides. The um there there are a lot of feelings, beliefs, and perceptions around study guides today. So I'm going to ask you some questions first. I know I'm actually like I'm in the hot seat right now. Yes. Yeah. So what are some good, bads, and uglies that you have seen with study guides or have done with study guides?

SPEAKER_01 1:25

I have done some good, bads. I always tell everyone we train, like I don't stand before you as a trainer, as someone who did it perfectly. I did it all wrong. Same and then figured it out. So study guides I've seen or done before. Um there was a short stint before I graduated from college where I took a job, basically I was done with my coursework and I hadn't graduated yet. And they allowed me to s do a long-term subposition at a private school just before I graduated.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Um, so that was the only time I ever taught private school. And I actually got in trouble at that private school. I will not name the private school, uh, because my study guide did not match the test. Like I had to give a study guide that exactly looked like the test, it just had blanks on it. Okay, what are your feelings about that? That's not that's just memorization. Like that's it's not even helpful. I mean, I especially coming from the perspective of a mother, you know, whose children if I were to ask two out of my three children what they had for breakfast this morning, although they eat usually the same thing every day, they would be like, I don't know. So my kiddos are not like kiddos that easily memorize things, but that's a mistake I've commonly made with study guides, is I've had it very closely aligned to the test and I've just had blanks almost like guided notes. We'll do a whole nother episode on that, right? You know, in the future. But it just wasn't effective. And I mean, honestly, let's talk about studying in general.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Well, can can I make a point about that one though? Absolutely. Because here is where it gets a little bit spicy. If you I loved as a teacher when I had those parents who did want to help their kids study for a test, but the parents don't know what we've covered in class. So if you're gonna help them prepare for an assessment, I do think that some things should match. There should be some things that help them to be successful on that assessment. Can you give me an example? But well, I'll I'll think of some examples in just a minute, but um, maybe some kids might need formatting practice, or maybe kids need the big concepts that if if it's gonna be like I'm thinking about some content, content-based um assessments. Yeah, if we're gonna talk about certain things in social studies, that's the most important content that needs to be studied. What's gonna be assessed needs to be on the study guide. But if it only the problem happens with if you only make the study guide mimic the test, what happens two weeks down the road or when you're preparing for a state assessment on that content, yeah, it's not sticky.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Well, and especially if we have like like I think about social studies, we do a lot of social studies training. Um, just like that memorizing that content, there's so much content, right? And if you're only ever just cramming it in through the form that it's gonna be on the test, they're gonna lose it. So that's something that you know I've done wrong in the past and that I still see today. I'm not gonna mention names or schools or anything, but I mean, as a parent, I'm seeing it. And we just don't know better. We know better, we do better. So, what is a better alternative than just doing a fill-in-the-blank type thing for study guides?

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Right now, so I have started going down some extensive research pathways. And this time I actually don't mean TikTok. Okay. This time I mean like legit peer review. I really wanted to look and see what research tells us about effective study guides and is there one right way to do it? And sadly, the answer is no. I agree. It well, it depends because it'd be easier if we could just replicate one thing, right? It would make our lives a lot easier as educators. But it depends on the content, it depends on the type of assessment, it depends on what students need to know. But so there are times that they need to memorize some things. But what's going to happen is if we don't in later lessons bring up repetition and recall, it's not going to stick. And then we get those moments before state testing where we're panicking of they don't remember what I taught back in August and September. And that's part of my standards and my content. So some of the guidance that I've seen that, and I know y'all are going to be sad that I don't, you know, have long lists of research for you to go read. Um, I mean, if you want to, if you want to know some things, comment and and I'll I'll send you some links. But um, it what's really important in the research, it's it's not just recall like quick memory, it's pulling up from your memory that consistent recall and conversation. Like retrieval. It's that's what the word I was looking for. It's retrieval practice, is what it's called. Um, and you can use things like bell ringers to retrieve, maybe something that you talked about last week or in a previous lesson or in a previous unit. Or you can do those quick embedding conversations connecting what you're doing in the content, spiral reviews, previous previous content. Yes, spiral reviews. But let's get back. I I get really sidetracked on this topic because it's so there's so many layers to it, squirreling. It's not me that's I know. There's so many layers to it, but let's go back to just the study guide itself. If you're preparing for an assessment, one of the best things that I've seen, and I and I will say Editopia has a lot of great links to articles of teachers who have have shared their ideas of how they do it better. Um, and I have read teachers' own anecdotes of where they did it better. Um, preparing for a test, they just had a blank piece of paper, gave every kid a blank piece of paper and said, I want you to write down everything that you remember about what George Washington did wrong um prior to the war, like all the moves that he made that were incorrect. And so the kids would do a brain dump um about all of the things that they were getting wrong, and then all the things that they were getting right. Wait, who was George? Washington and and his forces. And I'm I'm just I'm making up an example here, but just taking the historical concept. Yeah. And then so the kids were individually doing a brain dump, and then the teacher would have them, okay, now compare with your partner. What was there that was right? What were they doing that was wrong? And then the kids by talking about it, they were retrieving and going, oh yeah, and this, and then they would get in a group of four and say, Okay, now let's collectively see who has all of the sides who remembers. And then the teacher did a whole group review. So there were layers where they were retrieving it in their own memory. Yeah. And then, and I know that's hard to do just with one concept. Because I think it's it's ownership, right?

SPEAKER_01 7:46

Like if the kids really own the learning, they're gonna be able to bring it back up. And then that's a great way for you to see before the test, like who's got it, who's still struggling. Like, if you see a blank paper, red flag, what can we do? But I think you're definitely onto something with the you can't just wait to the test. Like it also has to do with the way you teach it. And I think like, and again, I'm thinking social studies, even science, right? If we are purposefully knowledge building as we're doing the things that we're doing, like we're building kids' knowledge about things, it's gonna be a lot easier to retrieve those, those, that information. Right. And this is where I could get on a tangent about guided notes right now. If I'm just giving them things from a slide and having them fill in blanks, they're not gonna remember that. They're not experiencing it. And and so, like when I think about social studies, when I think about science, when they're when they're gleaning that information or building that knowledge through a source or through a data set or through, I don't know, a text. You know, if they're experiencing it and they're taking ownership over it, it's gonna be a lot easier to retrieve it than it is if you're just filling in notes. And so I think when it comes time to study, that's why I don't always jive with the cahoots of the world and the blockets. My kids get a lot of blockets because one, that's not what the test is gonna look like. Um, and it's just gonna look a whole different, it's a different experience in general. And then two, it's come and go. Like my kids are gonna forget it. I see it happening in my house all the time, and it drives me crazy. I just want my kiddos to be able to really learn something, land it, and be able to bring that back up and retrieve it. And you but you have to do it all the time.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

Well, the research also says that there has to be connectors. So, in order for this to stick, that we've got to connect it to previously learned content and then hook it onto what's coming. And it's almost like the story of learning. And this it it holds it held true in the research for math, um, science, all of the subjects that students are building, like you said, those layers of knowledge. And if they can't go back and retrieve it and like make it almost like Velcro to other concepts, they're gonna lose it. And then as a teacher, and I here's where I went wrong. I would panic right before the state test because I was thinking back all the stuff that we had to review and go back and cram because they didn't, and and don't get me wrong, kids are not gonna remember everything.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

My kids are my kids are literally being asked to do that right now.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

They have study guides that are there and I'm like, they're not gonna remember any of this stuff. Right. And so and and the it is a part of life where you have to cram and study for tests. But the I would say here are some solutions. Take the most important concepts that carry out throughout the year, and that's where I'm gonna do the consistent retrieval and the consistent connections to new topics.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

So if you've got like a really big standard that has multiple layers to it and connect, that's where I would do the consistent practice. Um, and again, we're not saying there's anything ready wrong with study guides and fill in the blanks or anything like that.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

I think it's helpful for parents, right? If you don't know what your kids are learning in class, that gives me an idea as a parent what they have been learning. I just don't know if giving me a page of definitions is gonna help me as a, you know, to help my kid. But another solution, it's been so beautiful that we've seen like when you're reviewing, when you are spirally reviewing, those those hexagon tiles we post. We posted about these, I think like uh two years ago.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

Um, but if you've never seen hexagon tiles where kids they it's a mixture of tiles and they have to match them up and connect things and explain why they're connected, that makes them retrieve it and explain the why that that that class collaboration, that student-to-student collaboration, explaining why two things, two concepts are related. It's so powerful in making it sticky. And then you can always add in more tiles. So that's a really good solution. Um, another one that we've seen that's been successful is just even on tests. Like I've seen teachers bring back two or three questions from a prior unit just as a quick review. Hey guys, don't forget this was important and this is leading up to this. So we're gonna go back and we're gonna review a few questions. I had a teacher in one of the districts we work with that did this every time they took a quiz. They would ask like three or four questions from the last unit, and it just kept the learning connected. And it was really powerful that way. They ended up doing better. And so the more touch points they have, the better. And the more of um the coherence, you know, the through line that you can present to your kiddos, the more it's gonna make sense. You know, I never understood why we teach history separately. It is a narrative, right? So thinking about social studies and doing a continuum, a timeline of some sort, it shows them that cause and effect and how it builds and hopefully will help them land and remember that stuff instead of just memorizing it and it being gone.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

Right. Well, I'm gonna give you a quick test, and I want you to see if you can spot what I did wrong and and why it was not effective. Okay. So sometimes for I did a little stint of teaching science and earth science unit, and the chapters were long, and we had a lot of information that was on the test, and I was required to use the curriculum. Um, so of course, my kids needed study guides. They needed something to go home because don't get me wrong here, too. Study skills are a lost art. What's it? It is real test-taking skills, but study skills are a lost art. So I would give them the study guide that had a lot of the exact same questions, different order, or maybe different ways. And then the kids would fill it out, and then we would do a whole class review. Sometimes I would do the whole class review just out loud with a slide, or I would do it with a cahoot. I found where you went wrong. Okay. Tell me why it was not effective for all my students learning.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

Well, I think, especially when you're doing a review in class, right? What's wrong with that? You have to hold them all accountable to it. And so if I'm just going over it, they're not remembering anything. A lot of people do that. Like we've seen trash cabal. I've seen trash cabal be really effective, believe it or not. If every kid is responsible for their own answer and held accountable to it, and then they share out, like that's where I can actually see if kids are learning. But doing a whole class review, you didn't know who knew it, who didn't know it, you didn't know uh if they were even paying attention. That was like another wasted class period to go over what they had already done at home. I just so otherwise. So here's what I realized.

SPEAKER_00 13:53

If I was doing it from a Kahoot, there were several kids who that they could hide and they would just answer. And it was only on the board, and we were going through it. And don't get me wrong, like I'm not saying don't ever use Kahoot because there's definitely a place for it and it's gamified and it is fun. But when I was just going over the study guide answers in class, I wasn't always paying attention and catching every kid who wasn't changing the wrong answer. Yeah. And so they were going home and studying the wrong thing because I didn't have a way to, like, if I'm just going over it, or if one kid has the answer in the group, if I let them work in groups on it, one kid was saying the answer and I didn't have a way to check it, or I was doing double work by collecting it, scoring it, making sure they had the right answers, giving it, then giving the test. So it's just finding the solution. We don't have one right solution. Oh, but the research is saying to do as much retrieval practice as possible and then limit those ways in which that you do it whole groups so kids can't hide and see if you can make the learning sticky in their brains so that they can retrieve it on their own.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

I love that idea of the bell ringer because that's something that happens every day. It's very quick. And I mean, even in that time at the end of class that we used to have, where I would be like, pack up, but the person across the hallway wasn't ready yet to switch classes. Yeah. But that'd be a great place to throw up some of those, you know, um, former test questions or even the student answers and have them look at them and be like, hey, what else could we add to this answer? Right. And that way they're retrieving. It's just a constant process. And I we're not saying that you have to always add more to your lesson. It's really about making those connections and making sure you have frequent touch points with the content. That way kids don't forget it.

SPEAKER_00 15:31

Yeah. And to make it manageable, I have one last suggestion. Um, to make this manageable, go back and look at an old uh an upcoming assessment or a study guide, maybe that you've already created, and highlight what are the two to three top concepts that are they're gonna see a recurring theme. It's gonna come back up. You know, what science concepts do they have to remember all year long? I would highlight those and see if they're just some alternative questions instead of a definition or a fill-in-the-blank sentence. Is there a way that we could do this where they have to retrieve that information, maybe draw it out on a piece of paper or chart it and then compare and discuss and see if that helps. Just start with one simple step. I think that that's just one way to do that. Um, and then as as often as possible, just see what recurring themes are coming throughout the year or what standards build on each other that I need to consistently practice. Absolutely. All right, that was really nerdy fun. Sorry. I get really excited about this.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

It's okay. Um, well, thank you for joining us on our nerdy conversation about study guides slash review. Stay tuned, there will be more nerdy content coming at you. Um, but just as a reminder, we are educating. And if you haven't liked, subscribe, do so now because you're definitely going to want to check out the after hours episodes. Those are always entertaining, and we tell way too much information about ourselves. But we loved having you guys with us, and hopefully we'll see you next episode.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

And if you have any um ideas for study guides for us, drop those in the comments and share with the education world. Absolutely. We'll see you next time.