Synthesis, Study Guides, Review Sheets…

Now that AP exams are only a month and a half away, classes at my school have begun reviewing for them. I decided to check the homework my teachers have been posting, out of curiosity. After perusing various assignments, I discovered that they posted review sheets for the exams, containing condensed relevant information. And then it struck me: why don’t they make their students make their own review sheets?

I’ve been doing this a lot recently for tests and unit summaries — it’s what Scott H Young calls “synthesizing” information, and I find it extremely helpful. It’s akin to the Feynman Technique that he’s written about, except that instead of teaching just one idea by writing it down, you teach the entire unit, but in a condensed, concise form that reaffirms what you know. When you can explain how to do it on paper, you often have a very good idea of how all the concepts in the unit fit together.

So, yes, teachers: distributing pre-synthesized material is great. But the mental effort that a student puts into making one for himself is very different — much more thorough and engaged, and thus more likely to be remembered — from that of reading a pre-made one.

Whether my teachers do it or not, it’s helpful enough that I’m definitely going to do it.