Guest Author - Gregory A. Kompes



April 2008 Distance Learning Site of the Month

If you're looking for study guides to improve your own skills or those of your students Study Guides and Strategies is the place to begin.

The site has 12 main study guide topics:

• Preparing
  
• Learning
  
• Studying
  
• Classroom Participation
  
• Learning with Others
  
• Online Learning/Communicating
  
• Reading Skills
  
• Preparing for Tests
  
• Taking Tests
  
• Writing Basics
  
• Writing Types
  
• Research

Within these main topics you'll discover over a hundred different learning guides that include outlines, overviews, and flashcard style guides that will help you better learn and understand the topic.

The Guides are developed directly from educational research. Often they are digests of existing web pages reformatted with permission to the Study Guides' Web site's style. In some cases they are copies of information found elsewhere, copied with permission. In other cases they are combinations of research projects and papers. All contributions have been voluntary, and used with permission as much as possible. Translations are voluntary also, often in exchanges with educational and commercial sites. In some cases, Guides are mirrored or reproduced, even reformatted, on collaborators' servers.

History of Study Guides and Strategy

In June 1993, a preliminary resource database of learning guides was created by Bob Nelson, et al, Learning Resource Centers, Livingston Campus, Rutgers University. At the College Reading and Learning Association Conference in April 1995, Joe Landsberger attended a presentation by Nelson on his resource, and they quickly agreed that the FileMaker Pro database should be converted to HTML and a web-based format. Rutgers University agreed that year to provide the Guides free-of-charge and to Landsberger to reformat into HTML, and host them on a Web site. This agreement continues to this day, and the Guides are collaboratively developed across institutional and national boundaries. Database conversion to HTML by Landsberger with the assistance of Peter Turi, Budapest, Hungary, took place in February 1996

Since 1996 the Study Guides and Strategies web site has been researched, authored, maintained and supported by Landsberger as an international, learner-centric, educational public service. Landsberger developed an additional 85 guides from the original data base of 50, often at the suggestion of others. The original 50 were also revised and edited to fit the new format. Landsberger's main interest is providing, and digesting, educational research into an understandable and accessible form to help learners help themselves.

Visit the Study Guides and Strategies Website


[source: Study Guides and Strategies website]