#i was taught by someone else how to use flashcards for active recall but like in elementary school

[s00nyoungie]

Yesterday I found out that a lot of younger students dont know how to use basic Quizlets/flashcards. I was tutoring a P1 student and I asked her if she knew what active recall was she said no.

so I defined it for her as "yknow, when you test yourself with the Quizlets for drug quizzes, you look at the question on one side of the card and you make yourself recall whats on the other side without turning it over, then check" and this blew her mind because she was just reading the section that shows the front and back at the same time and going "okay makes sense" and then going into these quizzes thinking she memorized everything

i asked her classmates one-on-one if they used quizlets this way and like 1 every 4 students said yeah

[mirai-studies-languages]

A lazy student’s guide to doing well at school

Hi! Throughout my academic career, I’ve always been a pretty lazy student. I don’t revise loads, and I usually finish my homework at the last minute. Still, I pretty consistently get high grades (apart from those Cs in physics and chemistry), so I thought I would try to offer some help to students who want to bring their grades up without sacrificing all of their comforts (though you will probably have to give up some at least). Most of my tips are based around the principle of working smarter, not harder. This is also specific to GCSE/A-level/high school level academia, not college/university.

Try hard in your lessons! If you zone out, then ask your teacher or someone else for help. Don’t let yourself leave a lesson without understanding what you have been taught. You can talk to your friends, just make sure that doesn’t stop you from understanding the lesson. Understanding is key, because it means you will be able to recall all of your lessons much quicker when you need to revise. 

Review your notes at the end of the day! Make sure you wrote good and detailed ones in class so you do not need to rewrite them. When I say review, I mean test yourself on what you learnt that day, and check your noted to see what you missed. Then keep doing that until you’ve got it. This will take about 30 minutes max, if you made sure you understood what you were being taught.

Study how you are going to be tested! Get that syllabus, and make sure you know exactly what you need to do. Look at the mark schemes and specifications, and organise your revision based on what was on there.

Flashcards are a godsend! Use them! You might be able to find pre-made Quizlet flashcards online for your subject if you look hard enough. You can quickly go through them when you have time, and it usually won’t take that long.

Use active recall when you revise! Test yourself before you look at your notes, and after. Do practice questions, use past papers, go through flashcards: make sure that the information is in your head. This is an intense method, but it gets results and does not take that long, so you will have more time to relax afterwards.

 Watch youtube videos! This is a quick and easy way to get an outsiders explanations and perspectives. Make sure that you are actually listening to what is being said, or there is no point to it.

For languages, casually immerse in your free time! You can text people in your target language on apps like HelloTalk and Tandem, and watch films and TV shows, and read fanfiction, and find a native friend online to speak with sometimes.

Make essay plans! It will help you learn how to structure and develop your ideas in an essay. Makes dozens of these for your essay subjects, and maybe even try memorising a few. When it gets closer to exams, you might want to try planning and writing up a few essays, so you can get used to doing it all at once.

Read and write for fun! Try fanficition, poetry, wattpad stories - whatever you enjoy. You might want to try reading articles and books about things that interest you (withcindy has a fantastic channel where you could find loads of interesting book recs), and you might want to try your hand at writing some of your own. You could try what I’m doing, and start a blog about something you like (languages and studying in my case), and figure out how to use english in a more creative and engaging way. This just generally helps with essay subjects.

Realise that you won’t get the grades without putting some effort in! You don’t even have to study every day, but you will probably need to study for a while a few times a week. The knowledge and skills required to do well in school won’t come out of nowhere - you need to work on and develop them by yourself. If you need help figuring out a plan that works for you, come send me an ask!

Know how to cram the correct way! For me, that mostly involves testing myself the night before until I can remember everything, and watching youtube videos to get another perspective for essay subjects. Here @lifewithlala​ has made an amazing post about cramming. Also, @getstudyblr​ made an amazing 1 day and 3 day cramming plan. I’ve found both of these posts incredibely useful in the past. 

Study with friends! As long as you all make a commitement to (mostly) study, then there is no harm in studying with your friends. You could help each other out, and try teaching each other the content. It’ll be more fun with other people, and will also give you a much-needed outsider’s perspective.

That’s all I can think of at the moment. I hope it was helpful! Thanks for reading my post!

[themeofbalqis]

8 Things I Wished I Knew Before PT3 (2019)

Whew, 2019′s almost over. This was one wild ride of a year for me, as I sat for my first standardized exam in high school. I was also the first batch to sit for the new format of PT3.

This year taught me a lot, especially about being a better student. If only I could go back in time and told myself the things I’ll be saying now – I wonder if anything would’ve changed...

Oh well. The past is in the past, and there’s nothing I can do about that. What I can do, however, is to share what I wish I knew before I took PT3. Whether you’re a senior who’s just curious, or a junior anxious about taking PT3, I hope that this can bring some sort of benefit to you.

1. Keep a positive mindset.

It was easy for me to blame the Ministry of Education for not updating us on this format early on. It was easy to whine about how it was unfair that everything was uncertain, and how even teachers didn’t really know what to do.

Complaining is easy, but it won’t get you straight As.

Instead of blaming your failures/anxieties on others, divert that energy into positivity for yourself. Start planning out how you’re going to study, how you’re going to achieve your goals. You’re gonna have to suck it up and buckle up to get work done if you really want great results.

2. Be on top of organisation.

I had a pretty good organization system already, but I felt like this was important to highlight for future PT3 takers.

Having a good organisation system is essential for students. Our brains are already messy enough, so having a system that organises your physical schoolwork is extremely helpful. I daresay that my organisation saved me throughout the year.

I had a folder with 8 sections – one for homework that was due, one for homework that was done, one for my mental logic subjects (math, science, asas sains komputer), one for my earth logic subjects (pendidikan Islam, geografi, sejarah), one for languages (bahasa melayu and English), one for random letters related to school and one for stuff related to extracurricular activities.

Organisation is also extremely important for when you begin your kerja khusus/coursework in the middle of the school year. If you can, store your files related to kerja khusus both online and offline so it can be convenient for you, especially for asas sains komputer students. This way, you can work on your coursework even after school.

I’ll make a post about my coursework experience and tips later on.

3. Cover all the Form 1 and Form 2 topics early on.

And by cover I mean, have a solid foundation and understanding on those topics. Yes, not every topic will come out in the paper, but it’s important to be well-prepared, no matter what.

To do this, list out all the chapters in every subject for Form 1 and Form 2. Plan out a study schedule which will lead to you covering all the chapters before your midterms – within, say, five months.

For example, Sains Form 2 has 13 chapters. If you revise one chapter every Saturday starting from January, then you would be able to finish it by the end of March.

4. If you want to move to MRSM or SBP, focus on Mathematics and Science.

Yes, MRSM and SBP usually look for all-rounders, but they will be especially attracted to your application if you maintain an A in both Math and Science. That being said, don’t ignore Sejarah and Geografi just to focus on Math and Science.

5. Midterms is the deadline.

Trials aren’t considered proper exams anymore, but I think many schools still set a trials date to prepare their students for the coming exam. If you’re applying for MRSM or SBP, they’ll most likely ask for your midterm results instead of your trials result.

So you shouldn’t be playing around during your midterms like I did, and focus to do well. You can (and really should) take a breather for a week or so after your midterms.

6. Don’t fall for those expensive seminars.

I went to one that promised notes and support until PT3, but it didn’t really help lol.

Instead of shelling out RM100+ for those seminars, find a private tutor for the subjects that you’re having a hard time in/really want to get an A in. Going for tuition classes that has a small class size is also okay. Or you can badger your teacher for free. Find what works for you.

7. Make use of spaced repetition, the Feynman Technique and the forgetting curve

Whoa! What are all these weird terms? Worry not, my friend, for once you learn about the functionality of these terms, they will be extremely useful to you. I call them The Essential Triangle of Efficient Studying.

• Spaced repetition: allowing yourself to forget information for a while, then retrieving it so that you strengthen your knowledge of that information.

I would recommend Ali Abdaal’s video on spaced repetition, which you can watch here. Make sure to watch the first part too, and check out the rest of his channel.

• The Feynman Technique: if you truly understand something, you must be able to teach it to a 6 year old. Basically, teach yourself what you’ve learned in simple terms.

Here is another video on how to use the Feynman Technique. If you’re too lazy to speak to yourself like me, you can do this method of the Feynman Technique.

Read about what you want to revise. Now, close the book/put away your notes.

Take a sheet of paper. Write down what about you’re revising, as if you were teaching to someone else.

If you forget something, refer to the book/notes to remember it. But DON’T copy it word for word. Close it and put it away, then continue to write what you forgot about.

Repeat step 1 through step 3 again and again until you are able to write notes on the chapter without having to refer to anything.

• The forgetting curve: how long it takes for us to forget information.

Here is a graph of the forgetting curve.

Basically, you’ll forget 50% of what you learned within a day. To increase your retention, you have to intercept the forgetting curve. After you’ve learned something, try recalling about it before you go to sleep. Then, review it the next day. Afterwards, review it in three days. Review again seven days after the last review, and again 10 days after the last review.

The more time you spend intercepting the forgetting curve, the more you retain what you’ve learned.

The best way to use all three of these is by using traditional flashcards, or by using a Spaced Repetition System like Quizlet or Anki. Another fun way is to constantly quiz yourself with your friends – usually, my friend would be asking questions from the textbook, and the rest of us would fight to answer and get points. The loser with the lowest points usually had to belanja chicken nuggets.

8. Get your priorities and self-discipline straight.

If you want to get excellent results, you better start acting like a top student.

Spend less time with friends who aren’t academically inclined. Make a simple study schedule and stick to it. Hold off entertainment until you’ve finished studying.

Don’t overwork yourself, do a maximum 5 hours of revision on a weekday, 6 hours of revision on a weekend. Appoint a day in the week where you do the bare minimum in studying or don’t study at all, just for lazing about, working on hobbies, spending time with friends and loved ones.

Take enough breaks so you won’t burn out and get stressed. Life doesn’t end after PT3. Don’t dwell on mistakes, you have to keep learning from them and moving forward in this world.

That’s the reality of the world. And to think that we’re only 15.

Thank you for reading until the very end! I’ve been very blessed this year to learn a lot, not only inside the classroom, but about myself and life in general. PT3 was only a small portion of this year for me – but this post doesn’t really talk about that.

That being said, I’m grateful for everything that has happened this year. I’m grateful for my results, grateful for the people that have supported me, for the people who doubted me, too. Everything has taught me so much, and I want to cherish these memories and lessons until the very end.

If you’re taking PT3 soon, good luck! I wish you all the best. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to send me a message in my inbox. I’m always happy to help, as long as you’re willing to learn.

[di-sss-learning-engineering]

Ideas Our home for bold arguments and big thinkers.

MEMORY METHODS “No pain, no gain” also applies to memory tricks. ROTE AND WRONG The most effective memory methods are difficult—and that’s why they work

By Miles KimballAugust 8, 2018 Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder In the 2014 book Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning, authors Peter Brown, Henry Roediger, and Mark McDaniel describe which learning techniques work, and which ones don’t. I can distill their message into one sentence:

If it isn’t making you feel stupid, it isn’t helping you learn.

Since most people like to feel smart, they run away in terror from learning techniques that make them feel dumb. Instead, they mistakenly focus on methods that give them the satisfaction of feeling like they’re improving in real time. Some of the most common ones are:

rereading a textbook underlining and highlighting key themes burning an idea into your memory by going over it again and again and again in a single intense session waiting until you fully understand an idea to try to apply it or explain it But unfortunately, any improvements made evaporate quickly with these methods.

What makes knowledge and understanding stick in the long run is studying in a way that guarantees that you fail and fail and fail. Testing your knowledge and understanding in ways that make you realize what you don’t know is the rocky path to genuine learning. The details are in a battalion of studies the authors cite—many in which they participated. These studies make the key points: testing your memory, mixing things up with different kinds of concepts, establishing memory cues, and generally making things hard on yourself are crucial.

It’s a no pain, no gain philosophy. After all, real life is hard—it taxes your memory, mixes things up, and rarely gives you multiple choice options. Any approach to learning that isn’t hard won’t match what you experience in real life.

There are three key activities that effectively sear what you want to learn into your long-term memory:

Doing things in real life, or in a simulation as close to the real thing as possible. Flashcards done right. Building your own picture and story of the ideas. Let’s dig into each of these in turn.

“Practice like you play, and you’ll play like you practice.” This is a key bit of folk wisdom endorsed by the authors of Make It Stick. The military conducts war games. Pilots train on simulators. Footballers practice scrimmages against second-string “scout teams” who mimic the strategies of their next opponents. If you only run the drills in optimal, predictable conditions, you’re never going to be prepared for a curveball. (Quite literally in the case of baseball—practicing hitting unpredictable pitches has been shown to do a lot more good than concentrating on hitting one type of pitch at a time.)

If you are a student, you need to do practice exams under conditions that are as close as possible to the real ones. If you aren’t allowed notes on the real exam, don’t allow yourself any notes when you do a practice exam. If you have to write an essay on the real exam, force yourself to really write an essay for the practice exam. Most importantly, do the practice exam under exactly the same time limits as the real exam. That way you can learn whether you get flustered by time limits and if there are things you get right but can’t do fast enough yet.

In non-academic settings, you can’t expect to learn much by just watching. For example, you can drive to the store 20 times while relaxing in the passenger seat and still not know the route yourself. But once or twice driving there yourself—making your own mistakes along the way and correcting them—and you’ll have the route nailed.

In the modern era, we’re often in the driver’s seat physically, turning the steering wheel, but rely so heavily on directions from our smartphones that we still don’t learn how to get from point A to point B. If you are sure a crutch will always be there for you, then using it counts as “practicing like you play.” But practicing with a crutch doesn’t prepare you well for a time when the crutch isn’t there.

The work counterpart to having someone else drive is letting the IT department just fix your computer problem rather than first trying fix it yourself. It is awfully hard to learn how to do something without doing it, however messy or unsuccessful your attempt.

Recall a piece of information repeatedly Most of the information we absorb in a typical day is not only forgettable: It should be quickly forgotten. Do you really want to remember forever all the menu items you didn’t choose for lunch or what all the strangers you passed today on the sidewalk were wearing?

So how does your brain know whether something should be put into your long-term memory or not? Research finds that that attempting to remember an item repeatedly over an extended period of time is what puts it into long-term memory.

This means you need to intentionally try to retrieve items from your memory repeatedly to make them stick. The catch is that you can’t wait too long, nor try to solidify it too fast. If you try to remember too late after the fact, the original memory will be nowhere to be found; but if you wait only a few minutes to try to remember something, it’s too quick for you to signal your brain to put it into long-term memory. The key is to space out the attempts to remember in just the right way. The extensive references in Make It Stick include quite a bit of detail, but those results aren’t likely to be as useful as experimenting with the frequency and spacing that works best for yourself.

Done right, flashcards, whether they’re physical or virtual, are a great way to do memory retrieval practice. This is because they help space out attempts to remember an item, and you can come back to them easily periodically. But flashcards require some discipline in order to help. The number one principle is that you need to guess the answer before looking at the back of the card. Even if you think it is hopeless for you to remember, try. Sometimes you will surprise yourself. But even when you guess hilariously wrong, that effort of guessing carves out a space in your mind for the real answer to go—and you’ll definitely remember that’s not the right result next time.

The second principle is that you need to make it hard. Wait long enough between practice sessions—or put enough flashcards in the deck—that by the time a card comes around, you have to struggle to remember it. Third, cards you think you have down can be put in a slower rotation—but they shouldn’t go out of the rotation entirely. (Cards you make a mistake on can be put in a faster rotation.)

Another way to make memory-retrieval practice harder and really get your brain working is to shuffle in different kinds of tasks. The benefit of “interleaving” is one of the most surprising results from the research on learning, but it has been verified over and over again, such as in the batting practice study.

For example, if you are studying German vocabulary, have half the cards with German on top so you have to try to remember the English equivalent, and half the cards with English on top so you have to try to remember the German.  If you are using an app, choose one that switches between different types of challenges—like Duolingo, which tests you on verbal, aural, and text-based examples simultaneously—or go back and forth between apps on different subjects.

Teach what you are learning—if only to yourself If you want to learn something you were taught or heard about, write about it in your own words, from memory, after the fact. It is great if you can find someone else to teach what you are learning to, but this principle works even if you just pretend to teach it.

If you had to explain things without notes, based only on your memory, what would you say? What are the most important ideas? How do they hook together? Why should your listener care about the ideas? Trying to figure out how to teach something not only involves a lot of retrieving things from memory—it also involves putting things together in a structure that creates a lot of memory cues. This creates hooks to hang the memories on and drag them out of hiding when you need them.

Another great way to teach yourself this structure-building skill is to try to guess where a teacher or manager is going next when they’re explaining a concept. Here you are harnessing the power of surprise and your competitive spirit to imprint things on your memory. If you made the right guess, you won; if not, it was a surprise. Either way, it will be more memorable.

The same technique will help you understand someone else’s point of view. In conversation, instead of trying to think of what you are going to say next or interrupting when you think you already know where things are going, say silently to yourself exactly what you think the other person will say next—then notice where you guessed wrong. Not only will you perhaps learn something you didn’t know—you’ll also be a better conversation partner.

ideas, science, education, gfk, school

READ THIS NEXT There’s one key difference between kids who excel at math and those who don’t October 27, 2013Quartz

[di-sss-learning-engineering]

ROTE VS HARD ACTIVE LEARNING METHODS

Our home for bold arguments and big thinkers. “No pain, no gain” also applies to memory tricks. ROTE AND WRONG The most effective memory methods are difficult—and that’s why they work By Miles KimballAugust 8, 2018 Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder In the 2014 book Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning, authors Peter Brown, Henry Roediger, and Mark McDaniel describe which learning techniques work, and which ones don’t. I can distill their message into one sentence: If it isn’t making you feel stupid, it isn’t helping you learn. Since most people like to feel smart, they run away in terror from learning techniques that make them feel dumb. Instead, they mistakenly focus on methods that give them the satisfaction of feeling like they’re improving in real time. Some of the most common ones are: rereading a textbook underlining and highlighting key themes burning an idea into your memory by going over it again and again and again in a single intense session waiting until you fully understand an idea to try to apply it or explain it But unfortunately, any improvements made evaporate quickly with these methods. What makes knowledge and understanding stick in the long run is studying in a way that guarantees that you fail and fail and fail. Testing your knowledge and understanding in ways that make you realize what you don’t know is the rocky path to genuine learning. The details are in a battalion of studies the authors cite—many in which they participated. These studies make the key points: testing your memory, mixing things up with different kinds of concepts, establishing memory cues, and generally making things hard on yourself are crucial. It’s a no pain, no gain philosophy. After all, real life is hard—it taxes your memory, mixes things up, and rarely gives you multiple choice options. Any approach to learning that isn’t hard won’t match what you experience in real life. There are three key activities that effectively sear what you want to learn into your long-term memory: Doing things in real life, or in a simulation as close to the real thing as possible. Flashcards done right. Building your own picture and story of the ideas. Let’s dig into each of these in turn. “Practice like you play, and you’ll play like you practice.” This is a key bit of folk wisdom endorsed by the authors of Make It Stick. The military conducts war games. Pilots train on simulators. Footballers practice scrimmages against second-string “scout teams” who mimic the strategies of their next opponents. If you only run the drills in optimal, predictable conditions, you’re never going to be prepared for a curveball. (Quite literally in the case of baseball—practicing hitting unpredictable pitches has been shown to do a lot more good than concentrating on hitting one type of pitch at a time.) If you are a student, you need to do practice exams under conditions that are as close as possible to the real ones. If you aren’t allowed notes on the real exam, don’t allow yourself any notes when you do a practice exam. If you have to write an essay on the real exam, force yourself to really write an essay for the practice exam. Most importantly, do the practice exam under exactly the same time limits as the real exam. That way you can learn whether you get flustered by time limits and if there are things you get right but can’t do fast enough yet. In non-academic settings, you can’t expect to learn much by just watching. For example, you can drive to the store 20 times while relaxing in the passenger seat and still not know the route yourself. But once or twice driving there yourself—making your own mistakes along the way and correcting them—and you’ll have the route nailed. In the modern era, we’re often in the driver’s seat physically, turning the steering wheel, but rely so heavily on directions from our smartphones that we still don’t learn how to get from point A to point B. If you are sure a crutch will always be there for you, then using it counts as “practicing like you play.” But practicing with a crutch doesn’t prepare you well for a time when the crutch isn’t there. The work counterpart to having someone else drive is letting the IT department just fix your computer problem rather than first trying fix it yourself. It is awfully hard to learn how to do something without doing it, however messy or unsuccessful your attempt. Recall a piece of information repeatedly Most of the information we absorb in a typical day is not only forgettable: It should be quickly forgotten. Do you really want to remember forever all the menu items you didn’t choose for lunch or what all the strangers you passed today on the sidewalk were wearing? So how does your brain know whether something should be put into your long-term memory or not? Research finds that that attempting to remember an item repeatedly over an extended period of time is what puts it into long-term memory. This means you need to intentionally try to retrieve items from your memory repeatedly to make them stick. The catch is that you can’t wait too long, nor try to solidify it too fast. If you try to remember too late after the fact, the original memory will be nowhere to be found; but if you wait only a few minutes to try to remember something, it’s too quick for you to signal your brain to put it into long-term memory. The key is to space out the attempts to remember in just the right way. The extensive references in Make It Stick include quite a bit of detail, but those results aren’t likely to be as useful as experimenting with the frequency and spacing that works best for yourself. Done right, flashcards, whether they’re physical or virtual, are a great way to do memory retrieval practice. This is because they help space out attempts to remember an item, and you can come back to them easily periodically. But flashcards require some discipline in order to help. The number one principle is that you need to guess the answer before looking at the back of the card. Even if you think it is hopeless for you to remember, try. Sometimes you will surprise yourself. But even when you guess hilariously wrong, that effort of guessing carves out a space in your mind for the real answer to go—and you’ll definitely remember that’s not the right result next time. The second principle is that you need to make it hard. Wait long enough between practice sessions—or put enough flashcards in the deck—that by the time a card comes around, you have to struggle to remember it. Third, cards you think you have down can be put in a slower rotation—but they shouldn’t go out of the rotation entirely. (Cards you make a mistake on can be put in a faster rotation.) Another way to make memory-retrieval practice harder and really get your brain working is to shuffle in different kinds of tasks. The benefit of “interleaving” is one of the most surprising results from the research on learning, but it has been verified over and over again, such as in the batting practice study. For example, if you are studying German vocabulary, have half the cards with German on top so you have to try to remember the English equivalent, and half the cards with English on top so you have to try to remember the German.  If you are using an app, choose one that switches between different types of challenges—like Duolingo, which tests you on verbal, aural, and text-based examples simultaneously—or go back and forth between apps on different subjects. Teach what you are learning—if only to yourself If you want to learn something you were taught or heard about, write about it in your own words, from memory, after the fact. It is great if you can find someone else to teach what you are learning to, but this principle works even if you just pretend to teach it. If you had to explain things without notes, based only on your memory, what would you say? What are the most important ideas? How do they hook together? Why should your listener care about the ideas? Trying to figure out how to teach something not only involves a lot of retrieving things from memory—it also involves putting things together in a structure that creates a lot of memory cues. This creates hooks to hang the memories on and drag them out of hiding when you need them. Another great way to teach yourself this structure-building skill is to try to guess where a teacher or manager is going next when they’re explaining a concept. Here you are harnessing the power of surprise and your competitive spirit to imprint things on your memory. If you made the right guess, you won; if not, it was a surprise. Either way, it will be more memorable. The same technique will help you understand someone else’s point of view. In conversation, instead of trying to think of what you are going to say next or interrupting when you think you already know where things are going, say silently to yourself exactly what you think the other person will say next—then notice where you guessed wrong. Not only will you perhaps learn something you didn’t know—you’ll also be a better conversation partner. ideas, science, education, gfk, school READ THIS NEXT There’s one key difference between kids who excel at math and those who don’t