Help Me Help You: Educational Value, Perceived Usefulness, and Creativity of Student-generated Course Review Material

Abstract

Supplemental instructional material provides a variety of content delivery, outside of regular class meetings, to meet student learning style preferences. Many of these tools are engaging and interactive, but most of them have one thing in common: they were created for students by teachers. Meanwhile, of their own accord, students create study aids in preparation for major graded events. These tools vary in style, method, complexity, and completeness. This paper examines possible educational benefits of leveraging such student-generated course review material as a supplement to traditional, teacher generated review materials across various incoming student GPA's and learning styles.In the first two mechanics courses taken by engineering students at the United States Military Academy (USMA), at West Point, NY, students were given an assignment near the end of the semester to create a study aid. This assignment was designed to combine creativity with students understanding of technical content and require students to clearly communicate course content. Only general guidance was provided in order to reduce unnecessary constraints and encourage creativity. Study aids were created by groups of 2 or 3 students on a specific topic from the course. The types of student-generated products included: short instructional videos, solutions to example problems, topic outlines, and written summaries of course material. Once vetted by the instructors, these student generated tools were posted to the course web page and made available to the rest of the students to use during final exam preparation.Student access to each type of study aid via the course web page was measured and compared to assess students' perceived value of one type of study aid over another. Using current course grades, likelihood to use specific study aids based on previous performance in the course was also assessed. As part of the assignment each student completed learning styles and creativity surveys. Results from the learning styles and creativity surveys were used to assess which types of study aids were made by students with particular learning style preferences or creative tendencies.