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Show Notes:
In Episode 99, Megan talks about flashcards. Flashcards are a tool like anything else; they can be used to promote effective learning strategies, and also used in ways that are not so effective. This brief episode is designed to help students understand the best ways to use flashcards, and ways to avoid using flashcards.
Want to read more about flashcards and retrieval practice? Check out the posts below.
Be Your Own Teacher: How to Study with Flashcards: https://www.learningscientists.org/blog/2016/2/20-1
Learning with Flashcards: https://www.learningscientists.org/blog/2023/2/3-1
How to use Retrieval Practice: https://www.learningscientists.org/blog/2016/6/23-1
The 5-Sided Flashcard: https://www.learningscientists.org/blog/2019/4/4-1
A Student's Perspective on the Use and Helpfulness of Retrieval Practice: https://www.learningscientists.org/blog/2016/7/19-1
Leveraging AI in a Research-Driven Way: Augmenting Feedback During Spaced Retrieval Practice Using ChatGPT: https://www.learningscientists.org/blog/2023/10/19-1
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Hi I'm Dr. Megan Sumeracki, and I want to talk a little bit about flashcards. I know flashcards can be a really popular way for students to study and they really can be a great tool as long as they're used to promote effective learning strategies.
It's not that flashcards are inherently good or bad, it's that they can be used in lots of different ways and some of those ways promote effective learning strategies while some of those ways don't.
It's a tool like anything else and the tool can be used well and not so well.
So, with flashcards one thing to keep in mind is that making the flashcards might not be the most effective way to study. Sometimes students will tell me that making the flashcards is the part that's really important for them. That they like taking their index cards and copying content onto the flashcards. Copying our notes or copying content isn't necessarily a great way to, to learn the information in the long run. If a student is having to think about what to include and what not to include and how the different concepts are related to one another; as they're thinking about what to put on those cards, that might be an effective an effective exercise. But just copying the content isn't really beneficial in and of itself.
And so if you have access to somebody else’s cards you don’t need to worry about it. Making the flashcards themselves isn’t particularly helpful unless it forces you to think about what’s important and what’s not important and forces you to kind of organize the information.
So however you end up with your flashcards, once you actually have them, you want to use them to practice retrieval. Retrieval practice is all about bringing information to mind from your memory. And so if you take an index card, and let’s say you have a term on one side and a definition on the other side, if what you’re doing is looking at the term and thinking, hmmm, that seems familiar and then flipping it over and reading the other side of the card, that’s not retrieval practice. That’s just repeated reading, but with a flashcard.
What you really want to do is force yourself to bring the information to mind from memory. So if you’ve got index cards, flashcards with terms and definitions, you wanna look at the term and see if you can put the definition into your own words. Say it out loud. To a friend, or a pet, or just the wall. Or even take a blank sheet of paper and write out what you can remember about the term based on, on the term that you have on the index card. You’re basically using the index card as a cue. That’s practicing retrieval. And then, you can flip the card and take a look and see what you got right and what you might need to work on more. But in this way you’re forcing yourself to try to bring the information to mind from memory before giving yourself feedback.
And it’s okay if you don’t remember everything, or even if you don’t remember anything right away. Trying to practice retrieval before taking a look will make that that extra study opportunity, that looking, the feedback, more beneficial. And you can work your way up to being able to explain the information from your own memory.
Now, in addition, it’s not a great idea to use flashcards just to memorize terms and definitions. If that’s all you need to know, if you really do just need to be able to recite the definition of a term then this way of using flashcards with terms and definitions can be great. But a lot of times what we’re trying to do is learn what a term or what a concept is and then also understand. Understand how it can be used in a lot of different situations. Understand how it’s similar to other concepts. Understand how it’s different from other concepts. And you can use flashcards for this higher order more meaningful learning as well. You just have to be really intentional about it. And so one thing you might do is forget about the definitions on the other side. Just grab two flashcards at random with two different concepts on those cards. And from your memory, do the best you can to explain what each one is, in your own words. So not reciting the definition but just explaining what it is on your own. And then, think of all the ways those concepts are similar, and think of all the ways those concepts are different.
Sometimes you might randomly grab two concepts that are really, really similar to one another but they have one key difference. And knowing what that key difference is helps you discriminate between those two concepts. Sometimes you might grab two concepts that seem completely unrelated to one another, and the differences are huge. But there might be one way that they’re similar. Or at least you can identify what way they both fit into some organizational structure.
So, for example, I teach research methods. And if I’m teaching the students about independent and dependent variables. They’re not the same thing, but they are similar. They’re both variables within an experiment. One of them is manipulated within an experiment; the other one is measured. And knowing what the key difference is, is really important.
There might be two concepts that are really different from one another. Like … knowing what the institutional review board is and, gosh, and then it’s going to be hard in research methods to even come up with something that’s totally different… But knowing what the institutional review board is and maybe also knowing what a dependent variable is. And those things are pretty different. They’re both research methods, but the institutional review board is all about examining ethics of an experiment or studies and looking over what a researcher is planning to do to make sure that we are protecting the participants in the study. Whereas a dependent variable is, within an experiment, the variable that is being measured. But of course there is a relationship between them. So, I might describe what those two things are, and say they’re really different. One is a variable and one is an ethical body. But the similarity, what makes them, what makes them linked up is that an institutional review board is going to look at a researchers' proposed dependent variables to make sure that the types of questions that the participants are being asked or the types of things that the researcher is asking them to do feels, feels safe. And so in that way they’re somewhat similar.
And so it’s okay if you grab two concepts that seem completely unrelated because you’re learning them together for a reason. And if you can figure out what the key the key similarity is, the reason they’re both in the same organizational structure, that’s going to help you.
And so, in this way, you can use retrieval practice not just for memorizing but also for this sort of higher order more meaningful learning. And learning and being able to apply the information in the long run, which often is the goal in education or the classes that we’re taking. We want to pass our classes but we also want to know the information and be able to use it in future classes and in life or our careers in the future.
So, I'm going to go ahead and link to a couple of blog posts that describe effective ways of using flashcards so that if you want to read about this more or learn more about retrieval practice you can.