Want Your Students To Remember Everything?

Keith B. Lyle, Ph.D.

Celebration of Teaching and Learning, Feb. 8, 2013

There’s an App for That

Dept. of Psychological & Brain Sciences

Suppose you give students four practice problems or four short readings on the same topic. Would you recommend that students do/read them consecutively without breaks or spend some time on Facebook between each one? Or does it not matter?

How should students study?

Press 1 for Consecutively

Press 2 for Facebook breaks

Press 3 for Who cares?

For each sentence, press 1 if it is an exact quotation of a famous line from television or film. Press 2 if it is not.

Memory test

Luke, I am your father.

I think we’re gonna need a bigger boat.

Play it again, Sam.

Beam me up, Scotty.

Houston, we have a problem.

Why are these things (which didn’t even happen) so frequently remembered, when so much is forgotten?

Memory test

How can we help students remember more?

Today’s focus

We remember information better when its presentation or retrieval is spaced out

A freely available program to help students space out retrieval of to-be-remembered info

Ankisrs.net

Exposure

?

Retrieval Attempt Y

X

For any interval of time (X) between initial exposure to information and a retrieval attempt (Y)…

…the more times you have successfully retrieved the info during X, the more likely Y is

to be successful

What memory researchers know (and you should, too)

Exposure

?

Retrieval Attempt Y

If retrievals are spaced out during X, instead of happening one after another…

…Y is more likely to be successful

What memory researchers know (and you should, too)

X

Think about your exposure to, or own retrieval of, lines from television and film

Spacing is happening all the time

Or your phone #, social security #, UofL ID #, etc…

Ss studied 40 vocabulary pairs (e.g., limpid-serene, enervate-weaken) over 4 days and were tested on a fifth day

Each pair was studied 8 times total, but 20 spaced pairs were studied every day (2X/day) and 20 massed pairs were studied on one day only (8X)

An example of spacing

Number 1 represents limpid-serene and that pair was studied 2X every day

Number 36 represents enervate-weaken and that pair was studied 8X on the last day only

An example of spacing

Kornell (2009)

On the test, Ss saw limpid-_______ and enervate-_______ and had to fill in the blank

Ss “crammed” for these pairs the day before the test

Ss remembered 54% of the spaced pairs, but only 34% of the pairs for which they crammed the day before

An example of spacing

Students do not know that spacing is valuable

What students don’t know can hurt them

In Kornell’s study, subjects predicted that they would remember 33% fewer spaced pairs than massed pairs!

If given the opportunity to space, students knowingly opt not to

What students don’t know can hurt them

Karpicke (2009)

Some people mistakenly think that remembering can be easily dissociated from…

This isn’t “just” about memory

understanding

discovering

connecting

Research suggests otherwise

conceptual knowledge

Karpicke & Blunt (2011)

This isn’t “just” about memory

Ss studied a science text in 1 of 4 conditions:

Study 1X

Study 4X in a row

Study 1X – write down everything they remembered – study again – write again

Create a context map while studying

Karpicke & Blunt (2011)

This isn’t “just” about memory

Karpicke & Blunt (2011)

This isn’t “just” about memory

Mullaney et al. (2012)

This isn’t “just” about memory

Students cannot be expected to spontaneously make use of a tool they do not know is useful

Students need our help

Anki is an adaptive flashcard program that implements spacing for learners

Free computer-based version runs on Windows, Mac OSX, Linux, and FreeBSD

Anki basics

Free mobile version for Android phones

$25 for iPhones

A web-based version is also free

Supposedly works well on phones

Instructors can create “decks” and upload them so that students can easily download them

Anki basics

Supports images, audio, videos, and LaTeX

After each retrieval attempt, you are asked to report how easy/difficult retrieval was

The easier retrieval was, the longer the interval before the next time you are asked to retrieve

The more spaced out retrieval attempts become

Anki basics

Why Anki works

It is efficientOnce information becomes sufficiently easy to retrieve, the value in retrieving it over and over again (in massed fashion) is small, especially relative to the cost of time spent

Anki directs students to spend time attempting retrieval of information that is, by their own assessment, difficult for them to retrieve

Why Anki works

It creates desirable difficultyBy increasing the interval between retrieval attempts, Anki ensures that each attempt has a measure of difficulty, even for information that has been retrieved many times

Research indicates that making a retrieval attempt difficult can increase retention of the retrieved information

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Thank You