Note: These study guides are subject to
modification. For reasons as yet unforeseen we may not be able to follow the
syllabus exactly. You will be notified in a timely manner if test dates must be
changed. You will be notified of changes, additions, and deletions in lecture
material and readings from the text via email before each test. Additional
material will include information from videos shown in lecture.
Test emphasis will be on
those subjects addressed in the text AND in lecture (About 50-50, lecture
versus text, in terms of where test questions will come from). Obvious
duplications are obvious things to look at more closely. Tests 1 and 2, 100
points each, are 80% multiple choice answers and 20% short answers (including
short essays, matching, and lists). The final examination follows the same
format.
Read ahead. Read early.
Cramming the night before the test puts information in your head but no
context. Knowing definitions alone gets you a C. Knowing how things fit
together gets you the A. It is better to study extensively, a few hours or
sessions over a few days than to do it all at once. Some people do best when
they see it, hear it, then write it (“it” being information). Try recopying
your notes or making a few flash cards. The “worse” you are at a subject,
according to your own self-assessment, the MORE time you will have to spend
studying.
Study guides come in many forms. Some
instructors provide detailed, specific lists of concepts for students to study.
Others provide no input beyond listing the chapters to be covered on an exam.
In either case, the goal of the instructor is to develop your independent
skills at collating, prioritizing, and assimilating content. I believe that
learning how to learn is as important as the information provided in this
course. Learning how to learn is why you are in college. I hope that this class
will help you take a step toward becoming a master learner, someone who can
coolly and effectively dissect new information, distinguish the important from
the unimportant, prioritize it, and make connections between it and information
from your own pre-existing knowledge and experience. Hence, to foster the
development of this skill, I will provide you with some practice. This study
guide will provide study strategies and alert you to “markers”, ways to
determine relative significance of given bits of content. It will not provide
specifics like, “know this, be able to define that, etc.” That information is
already imbedded in the text and in my lecture outline.
Study the text first.
Content presented in my lectures weaves in and out and through that presented
in the text but the framework, the “cosmic structure” of this course, at least
within chapters, closely follows that of Cunningham & Saigo.
At the beginning of each chapter Cunningham
& Saigo provides you the reader with a list of questions that will be answered
in the chapter. You should know the answers to these questions when you are
finished with the chapter (I recommend writing out the answers to these
questions as part of your test preparation). Consider these as excellent sample
short answer questions. Cunningham & Saigo also provides critical thinking
questions at the end of each chapter. Use these questions as a catalyst to
crystallize your understanding of the subject matter in the chapter and in
lectures. Practice preparing written answers to these questions too.
Chapters in Cunningham & Saigo are
extensively outlined (NUMBERED SECTIONS, main headings, subheadings,
subsubheadings) and key concepts, phrases and words are highlighted, italicized
and/or put in boxes. The outline = Cunningham & Saigo’s priorities! The
highlighted concepts and definitions are used to link information together.
They are the “dots”. If you can connect the dots you have mastered the chapter.
Do not forget to read and carefully examine
the figures in each chapter! Case studies, spotlights, figures, and guest essays
are particularly fertile ground for test question generation.
After examining your notes
on the chapters you will begin to see that Cunningham & Saigo has provided
you with detailed outlines. Information in the chapters is organized in a
hierarchical arrangement of main heading and subheadings. Lectures are
similarly organized. However, your notes are your outline. Ask yourself, “how
does the subject matter presented in lecture fit with that in the chapters?” It
will be: the same as that in the text, more detailed or less detailed than the
text, or completely different (but linked to some information in the text). You
must go through the intellectual exercise of fitting lecture material into the
framework/outline that you identified by analyzing the text. Once so organized,
you will note that lecture material is also organized in a hierarchical fashion
with main heading, subheadings, and definitions. Compare the two sources of
information (lecture and readings). Where information is presented twice you
have found yourself a key issue. These issues/ definitions/ topics are your
highest priority (why else would I have repeated them?). If you know how they
relate to the whole and to each other you cannot lose!
Created by Don Porschien
Last modified on 01 APR 02
Subject to change without notice