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You can see some of my chemistry flash cards above – and you might think they look a bit weird. Additionally, it gave me the opportunity to make my own flash cards, which I was able to use as examples here. I thought this would be a fun challenge, since I actually never took chemistry in high school, and I find science a lot more interesting now than I did back then.
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In preparation for writing this article, I decided to start learning and memorizing the Periodic Table of Elements. Use Mnemonic Devices to Create Mental Connections
#Making anki cards during lecture how to#
In just one hour, you'll learn how to set up your to-do list, calendar, note-taking system, file management, and more - the smart way. With a proper productivity system, nothing ever slips through the cracks. “A post-picture sentence improves attention to and perhaps rehearsal of the representation of the picture following its display.”īy adding descriptive sentences – or even single terms – alongside pictures, you can increase your brain’s ability to recall what you’re studying. Our brains are surprisingly adaptive, and it turns out that a mixture of pictures and words works better than pictures alone. However, this doesn’t mean that you should replace the words on your cards with pictures. The locations of food, the animals that want to eat us or stomp us into the ground – these things are far more important to our brains than abstract squiggles on a page. When we think about it from an evolutionary perspective, this makes complete sense written language has only been around for about 5,000 years (and Homo Sapiens have been trotting the globe for over 200,000), and our brains have evolved to be very sensitive to imagery. In cognitive psychology, there’s a concept called the Picture Superiority Effect, which describes how people tend to remember imagery a lot better than they remember words. Mix Pictures and WordsĪdding pictures to your cards can make them a lot more memorable. The next four tips will show you exactly how. Plus, deciding to make your own flash cards gives you the ability to customize them and make them better. In most cases, the time you save isn’t worth it. When you use pre-made flash cards, you’re skipping that entire part of the process. That’s why one of professor Marty Lobdell’s tips in his Study Less, Study Smart lecture was to teach what you’re learning – doing so forces you to present the information in your own words. Creating something new with it – your own words, pictures, and methods of explaining that informationĭoing so creates strong neural pathways, which enable you to easily retrieve what you’ve learned at a later date.One of the most important and integral parts of the learning process is the act of: I think using pre-made cards can sometimes be useful – such as a case where you have an unreasonably high number of facts to learn and you’re in a time crunch – but in most cases, you’ll serve your brain better by making your own flash cards.
#Making anki cards during lecture download#
Lots of people like to share their flash card decks, and there are also plenty of flash card apps and programs out there that will let you download pre-made decks and start studying instantly. In this article, I’ll go over 8 of those best practices. Let’s get into it. You’re probably studying a subject right now that would benefit from flash card study as well, so it’d be useful to learn the best practices for making and studying those flash cards. For example, when I was learning Japanese, I made extensive use of flashcards for studying kanji. I want to help you avoid making those mistakes, as flashcards can be very effective when they’re used correctly. Over-using flash cards, or using them when a different tool or study method would be more effective.
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