10 Ways to Use Index Cards to Study

After you learn these 10 ways to use index cards to study, I'll bet you'll never look at a lil ol' index card the same way again.
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[@minarose3193]

This was a wonderful video! my tutor in the early 80's had me study similar to this method. W moved here from Iran during a time of war and a high stress environment. She had me literally study the dictionary. A-Z

[@SchoolHabits]

Thank you for that lovely feedback! I appreciate you taking the time to write a comment here. I appreciate you 🤓

[@OldTomato44]

Using flash cards to memorize a mind map (#8) - that's clever! I wish I'd thought of that sooner, that would have helped me memorize algorithms and processes during my Computer Science degree.

[@SchoolHabits]

Thank you so much for that feedback. To be honest, I wish I knew a lot of these study strategies back when I was in school too!! I used some of them in college, not knowing that they were actual techniques… But in high school I fell for the trap of believing that studying more meant I was studying better. And we all know that’s not true 🤪

[@aaawesomeenglish]

I also thought it was genius!

[@aaawesomeenglish]

I’m a lonely self-employed teacher and this is a topic I’m very interested in, so I have a lot of questions. 😅 All of them are meant to express curiosity and admiration, so please bear with me. Speaking of the first approach, for language learning specifically it seems like having an “I don’t know pile” may not be best as memory is not the only thing that needs to be addressed. The person needs to have struggled with the material before and needs to have some understanding of how and when to use whatever it is that’s on the card. Just memorizing it won’t bring the desired fluency and ability to use the phrase or bit of grammar in speaking or writing = it will minimally contribute to the person’s ability to produce the language in an accurate way. Say, they put the phrase “you name it” on a card, but they don’t know in what contexts it’s ok to use it, who can use it, why they might use it, etc. So they might memorize it, but not actually be able to use it after listing a bunch of things. What are your thoughts on this? Is there maybe something I don’t know about the topic? Or do you agree that this specific strategy is just not best in this specific case? The chunking method is basically about interleaving? Or am I missing something? Would you consider making another video on it in the future with more concrete examples? Speaking of approach number 4, what do you suggest the student does after? Is this a one-off exercise or would they want to practice the cards in groups? If the idea is to then repeatedly over time practice them in groups, wouldn’t that go against what we know about the power of interleaving? My English students use the Leitner System and have 8-10 piles of flashcards, most of which are lexical chunks. I myself have 8 piles for Spanish. I pretty much bought a tea box with 8 slots and use it for my flashcards. 😄 A lot of brilliant ideas! I loved the memory game and the mind map idea the most. Thank you so much for this video!

[@OldTomato44]

You bring up some good points - I would say that when I was a student, I considered flash cards as one of the first steps in my learning and studying. It wasn't often the ONLY study method I implemented, but it was certainly useful and I would not have been as successful a student without some initial flash-card drilling to help acquaint myself with the concepts. For example, I would often start with flash cards as a way to take notes from the textbook and memorize some core concepts - once that was finished, I would then draw flow-chart diagrams to help me understand the 'big picture' and how the individual elements interacted with each other. And your idea of a tea box for flash card storage - that's genius!

[@SchoolHabits]

These are such terrific questions! Thank you for continuing the discussion. You’re absolutely right that memorization is not learning. I talk a lot about that in some of my other content… Especially with vocabulary and language learning, it is not sufficient to simply know that X means Y. As you say, you have to learn how to apply the information, and not just to regurgitate it. It depends on how familiar a student is with the material and also on what type of material they’re learning, but one could either start with flashcards or end with flashcards. But keep in mind that the act of writing out the flashcards … even if the material is super new … IS part of the study process and kicks the learning process into gear. Great question about the chunking method. In a way you’re right: it is kind of like interleaving. But interleaving involves intentionally mixing up questions to challenge yourself on 2 levels: A to figure out what type of question you’re looking at and B to answer the question or solve a problem based on what type of question you’ve identified it to be. Chunking is just a way of prioritizing the order of the words you learn, starting with the ones that are most familiar. But they’re similar for sure! After strategy four, which is grouping the words into categories, you could then tack on any of the other study methods! Thank you for taking the time to ask such thoughtful questions 🤓

[@aaawesomeenglish]

@@OldTomato44 great point! I’ve just recently realized that note taking can go hand in hand with flashcard making. Pretty sure I learned it from Katie. Hahaha totally! I kept thinking about a way to organize my flashcards in a way that they’re easy and convenient to use, and one of these days I had a lightbulb moment as I was walking around TJ Maxx. 😁