The method of studying various disciplines "by cards", which is also called the Leitner system, has been known for about 40 years. Despite the fact that cards are most often used to replenish vocabulary, learn formulas, definitions or dates, the method itself is not just another way of “cramming”, but a tool to support the learning process. It allows you to save the time required to memorize a large amount of information.
Photo: /unsplash.com
A day after the lecture to the student only ten minutes to repeat the past. In a week it will take five minutes. In a month, a couple of minutes will be enough for his brain to “answer”: “Yes, yes, I remember everything.” A study done at the University of Alberta the positive impact of the Flashcards-Plus methodology on student grades.
But the Leitner system can be used not only in schools and universities. CD Baby founder Derek Sievers flashcard learning is the most effective way to support developer skill development. With it, he mastered HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
The hero of another example is Roger Craig in 2010 in the TV game Jeopardy! and received 77 thousand dollars in prize money.
In online learning, the system is used everywhere: there are almost no educational services where the cards would not be interned. The system is used in the study of almost all basic disciplines, and dozens of specialized applications have already been developed for it, both desktop and mobile. The first of these, SuperMemo, was developed by Piotr Wozniak in 1985.
First of all, he tried to improve the educational process for himself - in relation to the study of the English language. The method brought results, and the software turned out to be quite successful, and it is being updated now. Of course, there are other, more popular applications like и , which use similar principles as SuperMemo.
Prerequisites for the appearance of the method
One of the pioneers of experimental psychology, Hermann Ebbinghaus, studying the laws of memory at the end of the XNUMXth century, described the so-called dynamics of forgetting. Later, scientists his experiments, exploring”, and found that it varies depending on the characteristics of the material being studied. So, lectures or poems, being meaningful material, were remembered better. In addition, the quality of memorization was influenced by individual characteristics and external conditions - fatigue, sleep quality and environment. But in general, studies have confirmed the basic patterns of the phenomenon discovered by Hermann Ebbinghaus.
Based on it, a seemingly obvious conclusion was drawn: in order to preserve knowledge, repetition of the material is required. But for the high efficiency of the whole process, this must be done at certain time intervals. This technique of repeating with increasing intervals was first tested on students by Herbert Spitzer of the University of Iowa in 1939. But the Ebbinghaus curve and the spaced repetition technique would have remained mere observations if not for Robert Björk and Sebastian Leitner. For several decades, Björk studied the features of memorization, dozens of works that significantly complement the ideas of Ebbinghaus, and Leitner proposed in the 70s a memorization method using cards.
How it works
In Leitner's classic system, outlined in How to Learn to Learn, he recommends preparing several hundred paper cards. Suppose there is a word in a foreign language on one side of the card, and its interpretation and examples of use on the other. In addition, five boxes are needed. All cards go first. After viewing them, cards with unknown words remain in the box, and already familiar words fall into the second. The next day, you need to start again from the first box: it is obvious that some of the words will be remembered. So the second box is replenished. On the second day, you need to review both. Cards with known words from the first box are moved to the second, from the second to the third, and so on. "Unknowns" are returned to the first box. So gradually all five boxes are filled.
Then the most important thing begins. The cards from the first box are reviewed and sorted every day. From the second - every two days, from the third - every four days, from the fourth - every nine days, from the fifth - once every two weeks. What was remembered is moved to the next box, what is not - to the previous one.
Photo: /Pixabay License
In order to remember everything or almost everything, it will take at least a month. But daily classes will take no more than half an hour. Ideally, as Björk, it is necessary to restore what has been learned in memory exactly when we are already beginning to forget it. But in practice, this moment is almost impossible to track. Therefore, it will not be possible to achieve a XNUMX% result. However, with the help of Leitner's method in a month, you can remember much more than a fifth of the information that remains in memory according to Ebbinghaus's observations.
An alternative approach is to use specialized software. Such software has two differences from the "paper" method. Firstly, almost all have mobile versions, which means that you can study on the way to work or school. Secondly, most applications allow you to set user-friendly time intervals for reviewing what you have learned.
With the result that
Interval repetition is somewhat similar to regular exercise, which is necessary for muscle training. Repeated processing of the same information encourages the brain to remember it more efficiently and store it in long-term memory.
The brain says to itself, “Oh, I see it again. But if so often, it is worth remembering. On the other hand, the Leitner system should not be perceived as a "silver bullet", but more as an effective tool to support the educational process. Like any other teaching technique, it should be combined with other methods.
Our startups:
Our habratopics about memory and brain function:
Source: habr.com