Tag Archives: Higher Education

Study Together, Fail Alone: The Fallacy of Study Groups

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College Study Group by Meesha-Ray Johnson (Flickr)

Contrary to popular belief, the value of a study group is not to share notes and study together – it  is to test your knowledge of material you acquire for yourself. The best way to actually learn and assimilate information is to study alone – by taking your own notes in class, in discussions with your professors or reading assigned material. It is a fallacy to believe that you can use someone else’s notes and knowledge to assimilate knowledge for yourself. Information you seek to acquire from  actions taken by others – is proprietary; you can’t buy it, borrow it or steal it, here’s why:

* The person that took those notes learned and assimilated information, then made notes best suited to their learning style, not yours.

* Your learning process did not kick in, no matter how carefully you read their notes. Why? Because you didn’t put in the time on those notes; the person who created them did.

If all you need to do is memorize, then you can probably use someone else’s notes. If you need to understand the material at a deeper level and use it formulate answers to questions and/or solutions to problems, you must do more, you have to know it for yourself.

Let me tell you a story from my book, “College in Four Years,” to illustrate how studying together, might end in your failing alone. Seven students in a class I was teaching formed a study group. They divvied up taking notes and making outlines from class. They met regularly and exchanged notes and problem solutions to study for exams that covered all the material they were responsible for. They all ended up failing my class.

After talking extensively to  them as a group, as well as individually, I figured out that they had each mastered about 1/7th of the information in the class – equal to the notes and material that they had been responsible for in the study group. Some students knew more than others but none of them knew much more than they had studied for themselves. If you master just 14% of the class material, there is no legitimate way you’re going to pass.

I explained to them that the value of a study group is to test your understanding of what you already know. Needless to say, the students were skeptical of my theory. So I asked the students to bring me their group notes for the course, with each set identified by the student who made them. I asked the group questions; however, the student who took the related notes could not answer. For the most part, the students did not know or only partially knew answers from notes made by their counterparts. They were surprised.

“We read through every set of notes,” they said, “We were sure we knew the material.”

These students found out the hard way that group knowledge is not the same as individual knowledge. They took a shortcut and relied on the study group to split up the work so each person could do less. A better way would have been the two-step strategy for study groups:

1.Gather and learn information independently by taking your own notes which summarize study material in a meaningful way that you understand and can use.

2.Then, get together and ask one another questions to test everybody’s understanding of the material.

This is how your study group becomes a valuable resource. Your study partners can test your understanding of the material studied much better than you can on your own. The students who do less get less for it – when students do more, they get the most out of it.

When You Choose A College Major Is As Important As What College Major You Choose

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Nashville Public Radio career options, choices, decisionson the Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR)  push to do away with undecided majors. The goal is to have all freshmen declare a major – in other words, require 18-year-olds to declare what they want to do with the rest of their lives. While early declaration of a major may be good for some students, it is not the right choice for all students. In NPR’s report, a spokesman for Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) said  the school recognizes that exploration is important but that they still want to get students into a declared major as soon as they can. I think that TBR and MTSU are doing students a disservice by not giving them the time and the opportunity to make a more informed decision about a major.

Most college and universities, including MTSU,  have a general education core of courses that all students must take their first two years. These courses cover all disciplines and give students a strong liberal arts foundation that introduces them to many areas of study so they have a better idea of what they want to major in. Taking this opportunity away from students is not a wise decision. It will result in more students changing their majors during the first two years or worse, staying in a major they really don’t want to be in – just because they declared it before they really knew what they were interested in.

In my book, College in Four Years, I dedicate an entire chapter to the process of choosing a major – it is that critical to a student’s progress toward graduation. My recommendation, use the first two years of college study to make a decision about a major. Then, begin studies in that major in the third year of college. This approach helps students know better what major to choose  and why they are choosing it. It also helps them avoid  taking courses that won’t count toward graduation because the major they declared at 18 doesn’t fit the future of a more educated and experienced 20-year-old.

College Is An Entrepreneurial Venture

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Josh Smith, Granville Sawyer and Molly Matthews on Biz Talk with Josh
Josh Smith, Granville Sawyer and Molly Matthews on Biz Talk with Josh

Molly Mahoney Matthews and Dr. Granville M. Sawyer were recent guests for two shows on CBS Radio’s Biz Talk With Josh. Host Joshua I. Smith interviewed Matthews and Sawyer and the topic was Bookends, an innovative approach to college as an entrepreneurial venture that prepares college students to graduate in four years with business and entrepreneurial skills. Bookends pairs the higher education experience of Dr. Granville M. Sawyer, Jr. with the entrepreneurial/business management success of Molly Mahoney Matthews using the information and insight from Molly Matthews’ book, Unsinkable: Find A Job, Create A Career, Build A Business and Dr. Granville Sawyer’s book College in Four Years: Making Every Semester Count.

Click the player to listen to an excerpt from the show:

Interested in learning more about Bookends for your organization or institution? Complete the contact form below.

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