[OLPC-GSoC] Flash Card software (memorization)

[Frederick Grose]

This recent paper in Science has some interesting concluding sentences,

> ... the present research shows that the conventional wisdom existing in
> education and expressed in many study guides is wrong.  Even after items can
> be recalled from memory, eliminating those items from repeated retrieval
> practice greatly reduces long-term retention.


How about a facility that would present review quizzes for lessons
previously studied, perhaps gathered from appropriate records in the
Journal.  Any lesson software could register flash-card reminder lessons for
use with the proposed tool.


(http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/319/5865/966)
The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning
 *Jeffrey D. Karpicke1* and Henry L. Roediger, III2 *

Learning is often considered complete when a student can produce the correct
answer to a question. In our research, students in one condition learned
foreign language vocabulary words in the standard paradigm of repeated
study-test trials. In three other conditions, once a student had correctly
produced the vocabulary item, it was repeatedly studied but dropped
from further
testing, repeatedly tested but dropped from further study, or dropped from
both study and test. Repeated studying after learning had no effect on
delayed recall, but repeated testing produced a large positive effect. In
addition, students' predictions of their performance were uncorrelated with
actual performance. The results demonstrate the critical role of
retrieval practice
in consolidating learning and show that even university students seem
unaware of this fact.

 1 Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette,
IN 47907, USA.
2 Department of Psychology, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis,
MO 63130, USA.
On Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 11:20 AM, Omar Bazavilvazo <Omar at bazavilvazo.net>
wrote:

> Hi!
>
> I read the ideas, and I´m interested on the flashcard software
> (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Summer_of_Code/2008/Ideas#Flash_Card_creator).
> I posted my proposal on SoC student dashboard, however, didn't get any
> feedback yet.

...

> ==============
> The process of memorizing consists on moving information from short-term
> memory to the long-term memory. Accordingly to many scientific research
> the flashcards are one of the best ways to accomplish this task.
> Long-term memories need to be relearned occasionally to survive in our
> memory.
> Sebastian Leitner discovered that flashcards were very good tools for
> this process of relearning. Leitner's research indicated that a lot of
> time was being wasted in going over material that was already learned.
> To make learning as time-efficient as possible, Leitner separated a
> cardboard box into various boxes and placed all of the flashcards in one
> of the middle boxes. Each card had a question on one side and the answer
> on the other. Leitner then checked all the cards: if he got the answer
> right, the card moved forward a compartment; if he got the answer wrong,
> the card moved back a compartment. Soon, Leitner had divided all of the
> cards into two categories: those he knew, and those he did not. He could
> then go back and study only those cards that gave him trouble, without
> wasting time going over information he had already learned. As he
> learned that troublesome information, he moved the cards ahead.
> The advantage of this method is that one can focus on the most difficult
> flashcards, which remain in the first boxes. The result is a reduction
> in the amount of study time needed.
>
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