Flashcard
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A flashcard or flash card is any of a set of cards bearing information, as words or numbers, on either or both sides, used in classroom drills or in private study. One writes a question on a card and an answer overleaf. Flashcards can bear vocabulary, historical dates, formulas or any subject matter that can be learned via a question and answer format. Flashcards are widely used as a learning drill to aid memorization by way of spaced repetition.
[edit] Leitner System
A widely used method to efficiently use flashcards was proposed by the German science popularizer Sebastian Leitner in the 1970s. In his method, known as the Leitner system, flashcards are sorted into groups according to how well you know each one in the Leitner's learning box. This is how it works: you try to recall the solution written on a flashcard. If you succeed, you send the card to the next group. But if you fail, you send it back to the first group. Each succeeding group has a longer period of time before you are required to revisit the cards.
For example, suppose you have 3 groups called Group 1, Group 2 and Group 3. The cards in Group 1 are the ones that you often make mistakes with, and Group 3 contains the cards that you know very well. You might choose to study the Group 1 cards once a day, Group 2 every 3 days, and the Group 3 cards every 5 days. If you look at a Group 1 card and get the correct answer, you "promote" it to Group 2. A correct answer with a Group 2 card "promotes" that card to Group 3. If you make a mistake with a Group 2 or Group 3 card, it gets "demoted" to the first level, which forces you to study that card more often.
The advantage of this method is that you can focus on the most difficult flashcards, which remain in the first few groups. The result is, ideally, a reduction in the amount of study time needed.
Similar ideas have been implemented into a number of computer-assisted language learning titles. Much of this software makes use of so-called electronic flashcards.
[edit] ERO (Efficient Recitation with Overlearning)
The term recitation, seldom seen in writings on modern theories of education, was frequently used in pedagogy manuals during the first half of the 20th century, to mean a type of rote learning, oral repetition of passages (Schunk, 2008). Aside from research by Ebbinghaus (1885), it does not seem that there has been systematic study of this.
Himes (unpublished) refers to a system with outlining and flashcard drills as “efficient recitation with overlearning,” ERO, designed for memorizing texts and lecture notes in detail, suggesting that it can be especially useful for memory-intensive courses. Drilling with flashcards is more efficient than simply repeating words in that more time is spent on items that need to be learned. Flashcard drills are also efficient in that they make use of spans of time, short and long, that otherwise do not contribute to learning course content. Preston (1959), Kranyik and Shankman (1963), and Cohn (1979) are among the authors who have offered research-based advice on study. They emphasize organization and structure of information in memorizing.
Himes presents a flashcard drill, with these instructions.
1. Review all cards. Review all the cards in the set, looking at each front and back. Go through the set several times. The number of cards in a set depends on the individual and how detailed the writing on the cards is. You might start with 50 very simple cards and gradually add a few more hundred after learning the first set.
2. Test and sort. Read the front of the card. Try to say what’s written on the back. If you’re wrong, put the card in a “wrong” pile. Do this for each card, until the cards are sorted into a “right” and a “wrong”pile.
3. Review the “wrong” pile. Read each card in the “wrong” pile, front and back. Go through the “wrong” pile several times.
4. Test and sort with the “wrong” pile. Go through the cards of the “wrong” pile, testing yourself with them and sorting them into a “right” pile and a “wrong” pile, just as you did with all the cards in Step 2. Keep working with the cards of the “wrong” pile until all of them are in the “right” pile, then practice with overlearning.
The author points out that with certain kinds of material it is also useful to reverse the task, reading the back of a card and recalling its front.
Outlining is a traditional method of organizing material, mentioned in many manuals. Himes is one of the authors who recommends writing a single outline that combines material from lecture and text notes. One advantage of ERO is that time devoted to detailed outlining is itself useful study.
An example of detailed outlining is shown here.
The 13 Colonies
1. the first people to come from Europe to the east coast, and people from Africa, who became slaves
2. the American Revolution — war against Britain, because Americans wanted freedom to participate in and criticize government, to worship and conduct business as they wanted to
3. The Declaration of Independence described the King's mistreatment of Americans. It was signed on July 4, 1776 and it is the reason for our national holiday, Independence Day. It says that "all men are created equal" and have rights from God, such as "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
With an outline that has an A, B, C ... series, the student first makes a card that lists those A, B, and C headings on one side of the card and gives details about them on the other side. On the next card, the A topic heading should be on one side and more detailed information about the topic on the other side, and so on, until the outline has been written as a set of flashcards.
The Internet serves as an analogy. The student’s memory helps the student answer a question by directing it through the outline to the “address” of the desired information.
A set of flashcards can be improved by adding a few mnemonic devices — words, numbers, or simple drawings that trigger memories.
[edit] References
- Cohn, Marvin (1979). Helping Your Teen-age Student: What Parents Can Do to Improve Reading and Study Skills, Dutton, ISBN 978-05-2593-065-5.
- Ebbinghaus, H. (1885). Über Das Gedchtnis: Untersuchungen Zur Experimententellen Psychologie, Duncker & Humblot. The English edition is Ebbinghaus, H. (1913). Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology, Teachers College, Columbia University.
- Himes, Thomas (unpublished). Study Skills for All Ages: A Sourcebook.
- Kranyik, Robert and Shankman, Florence V. (1963). How to Teach Study Skills, Teacher’s Practical Press.
- Preston, Ralph (1959). Teaching Study Habits and Skills, Rinehart. Original from the University of Maryland digitized August 7, 2006.
- Schunk, Dale H. (2008). Learning Theories: An Educational Perspective, Prentice Hall, ISBN 01-3010-850-2.
