Here is a post about spaced-repetition (SRS) flashcard options for teaching, I wrote on my other blog, Teaching with Smartphones.
Please take a look and tell me what you think!
Showing posts with label SRS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SRS. Show all posts
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Monday, May 7, 2012
Regaining control of large Anki decks
Recently, my google alerts led me to this interesting article by Bill Powell at "Keep What You Learn."
Just the day before, I had been having similar problems with with the Anki decks I have made from my Japanese - Rosetta Stone materials. Some of the decks are very large, and reviews can feel disjointed and disconnected, all of which can be very discouraging...
So I tried something that might be helpful. With my primary Rosetta Stone deck of almost 3000 cards, I had gotten behind in my reviews to the tune of almost 1500 cards. It seemed hopeless. So I decided to use the tags to only study the cards from the most recent lesson - about 260 cards. This did two things that really seemed to help.
One was psychological: suddenly the number of reviews did not seem overwhelming, and I felt empowered to study in a dedicated fashion. I know all the other reviews are waiting out there for me, but reviewing now felt like a positive experience. I'm excited again and pushing myself to zero out the deck.
The second thing was that now all the cards were from the same lesson: all about food, cooking, tools, building, etc. They were clustered again, and the context helped reinforce the connections, making it easier to remember and learn.
So perhaps the key is to break up large decks into more manageable chunks, both in terms of number and content? It creates the feeling of control and progress, something vital to keep up the motivation to study!
On a similar note, I have a review deck for the first 2000 kanji that I keep chipping away at. I also have a deck of new kanji with 330 cards and climbing that I am able to zero out every morning - a small victory that keeps me motivated!
Any thoughts?
Just the day before, I had been having similar problems with with the Anki decks I have made from my Japanese - Rosetta Stone materials. Some of the decks are very large, and reviews can feel disjointed and disconnected, all of which can be very discouraging...
So I tried something that might be helpful. With my primary Rosetta Stone deck of almost 3000 cards, I had gotten behind in my reviews to the tune of almost 1500 cards. It seemed hopeless. So I decided to use the tags to only study the cards from the most recent lesson - about 260 cards. This did two things that really seemed to help.
One was psychological: suddenly the number of reviews did not seem overwhelming, and I felt empowered to study in a dedicated fashion. I know all the other reviews are waiting out there for me, but reviewing now felt like a positive experience. I'm excited again and pushing myself to zero out the deck.
The second thing was that now all the cards were from the same lesson: all about food, cooking, tools, building, etc. They were clustered again, and the context helped reinforce the connections, making it easier to remember and learn.
So perhaps the key is to break up large decks into more manageable chunks, both in terms of number and content? It creates the feeling of control and progress, something vital to keep up the motivation to study!
On a similar note, I have a review deck for the first 2000 kanji that I keep chipping away at. I also have a deck of new kanji with 330 cards and climbing that I am able to zero out every morning - a small victory that keeps me motivated!
Any thoughts?
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Cognitive Fluency - what goes on behind the scenes in our brains!
This article from the Boston Times, Easy = True, really blew my mind about how our brains work.
After reading it and thinking about all its ramifications, I radically changed my teaching (and better understood my own Japanese learning). I highly recommend you read this article. It has implications far beyond just teaching and learning.
*Update - A reader asked me to explain better how it relates to my teaching, especially in terms of Anki.
I think the key passage from the article is as follows (I put the key words in bold):
"The persuasive power of repetition, clarity, and simplicity is something that people who set out to win others’ trust - marketers, political candidates, speechwriters, suitors, and teachers - already have an intuitive sense of if they’re good at what they do. What the fluency research is showing is just how profound the effect can be, and just how it works."
The research seems to show that our brains like the information to be repeated, clear, and simple. In terms of teaching, I think if these three concepts are not present in what we do in the classroom, then our students' brains will not be happy, and therefore, they will not learn. Our students will not trust us and will not relax enough to learn effectively.
Repetition - Not only should we provide the repetition of content to the students, but our students should be able to repeat (do again and again) what we ask of them. If they can't, for whatever reason, their brains will be unhappy and they won't learn.
Clarity - Our students must understand what they are doing and why. From my own experience in Japanese language classes here in Tokyo, not understanding what the teacher is asking me to do is EXTREMELY frustrating and drives me crazy. It makes me want to quit...
Simplicity - This is not to say that the content (i.e. English) should be simple but that the activity itself should not be complicated or difficult. Again, the brain does not like things that are hard. Yes, we should challenge our students but not in a way that turns them off from learning.
So, how does this relate to Anki? Well, it seems to me that Anki could be a perfect manifestation of these three concepts. It is all about repetition. It is very clear about what a user must do and how it works. It is a very simple process, elegant even. And I think it is Anki's simplicity that is the most important. It takes the extremely difficult process of organizing, sorting, sequencing, and checking a huge amount of information and reduces it to a simple click of a button. An Anki user doesn't have to stress about all that; it takes all the worry out of the process. That freedom from stress and worry is amazing and powerful.
When I try to summarize this aspect of Anki to people, I say, "You only have to study what you NEED to study WHEN you need to study it." To me, that feels like a warm, soft blanket on a cold, rainy day...
However, how do we get our students to realize and understand all of this? That is the challenge...
After reading it and thinking about all its ramifications, I radically changed my teaching (and better understood my own Japanese learning). I highly recommend you read this article. It has implications far beyond just teaching and learning.
*Update - A reader asked me to explain better how it relates to my teaching, especially in terms of Anki.
I think the key passage from the article is as follows (I put the key words in bold):
"The persuasive power of repetition, clarity, and simplicity is something that people who set out to win others’ trust - marketers, political candidates, speechwriters, suitors, and teachers - already have an intuitive sense of if they’re good at what they do. What the fluency research is showing is just how profound the effect can be, and just how it works."
The research seems to show that our brains like the information to be repeated, clear, and simple. In terms of teaching, I think if these three concepts are not present in what we do in the classroom, then our students' brains will not be happy, and therefore, they will not learn. Our students will not trust us and will not relax enough to learn effectively.
Repetition - Not only should we provide the repetition of content to the students, but our students should be able to repeat (do again and again) what we ask of them. If they can't, for whatever reason, their brains will be unhappy and they won't learn.
Clarity - Our students must understand what they are doing and why. From my own experience in Japanese language classes here in Tokyo, not understanding what the teacher is asking me to do is EXTREMELY frustrating and drives me crazy. It makes me want to quit...
Simplicity - This is not to say that the content (i.e. English) should be simple but that the activity itself should not be complicated or difficult. Again, the brain does not like things that are hard. Yes, we should challenge our students but not in a way that turns them off from learning.
So, how does this relate to Anki? Well, it seems to me that Anki could be a perfect manifestation of these three concepts. It is all about repetition. It is very clear about what a user must do and how it works. It is a very simple process, elegant even. And I think it is Anki's simplicity that is the most important. It takes the extremely difficult process of organizing, sorting, sequencing, and checking a huge amount of information and reduces it to a simple click of a button. An Anki user doesn't have to stress about all that; it takes all the worry out of the process. That freedom from stress and worry is amazing and powerful.
When I try to summarize this aspect of Anki to people, I say, "You only have to study what you NEED to study WHEN you need to study it." To me, that feels like a warm, soft blanket on a cold, rainy day...
However, how do we get our students to realize and understand all of this? That is the challenge...
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