Flashcards and Math

  I'm looking at the use of flashcards in today's entry because I work with teachers who still hand students packs of flash cards to work on learning their multiplication facts.  I'd love to use them in high school if they are indeed an effective way of learning.

After reading up on the topic, flashcards can indeed be effective because they provide active recall.  When you look at the front of the card, your brain searches for the information.  Active recall creates stronger neural connections and flash cards allow for easy repetition. 

Flashcards have you use your meta-cognition because you have to determine if your solution is correct. It makes you do self-reflection as you compare your answer with the flash card and it helps place that knowledge deeper into your memory.  Finally, flashcards provide confidence-based repetition which helps improve memory. 

When it comes to making flashcards, there are ways to create the cards so they are more effective than just the standard drill and kill ones.  There are eight things you can do to improve the use flashcards.

1. Make your own flash cards because it helps your brain intake the new information while starting to build strong neural pathways to recall the information later.  When you create your own flash cards, you are putting it in your own words.  When you use pre-made cards, you skip these steps.

2.  Add pictures to the flashcards because most people remember pictures better than words.  Do not replace words with pictures because that will not set things up for optimum learning.  It must be a combination of words and imagery. The written part can be a short descriptive sentence or a single word.

3. Uses mnemonics or sayings when you can otherwise select acronyms, rhymes, or associative images to help you remember.  In general, the wilder and crazier the association, the better you will remember the information.  Since you are making the cards for you, the association only matters to you.

4.  Do not write more than one fact per card.  When you place several facts on the answer side, you trigger the illusion of competence rather than actually being competent.  Our brains are good at recognizing something we've seen before but its not the same as actual recall.  Recall occurs without without a clue. 

5.  Be sure to break the more complex topics into multiple questions.  For instance if you want to look at the groupings of the periodic table, you need one question for each group.  In math, you might ask yourself about the three possible answers but do it using three specific questions, each on a different card, otherwise you'll fall into the illusion of competence.

6.  Be sure to answer questions out loud because you must organize your thoughts in the process.  If you have a friend, let them ask the question while you answer out loud, otherwise you could record your answers to play back while you compare.  If you answer silently, it only continues the illusion of competence.

7. Now for the big idea.  Study both the material from both sides of the cards.  Run through them testing yourself via the front of the cards, then run through them using the back side for clues.  This helps build neural pathways that run both ways rather than the traditional one direction.

8. Furthermore, do not use flashcards as the only method of reviewing material.  Make it only one of many such as writing down what you remember in your own words, write a quiz, take a test made by someone else, make mind maps or Venn diagrams, or work lots of practice problems.

So if you are a person who likes flashcards, these are some suggestions to keep in mind.  I didn't know some of this before I went looking because when I was younger, you went through flash cards over and over so you felt confident but when the test came, you promptly forgot it all.

Let me know what you think.  I'd love to hear.