Category Archives: L&B Blog

Teachers certainly can benefit from background brain knowledge. It’s fascinating, for instance, to learn about the intricacies of neural network formation.

At the same time, we and our students often want practical classroom guidance. What exactly should we DO — and, in particular, what should we DO DIFFERENTLY?

For example: given the enthusiasm with which our students turn to flashcards, we should welcome any guidance on their best use.

Here’s a helpfully specific question: should our students use relatively small or relatively large stacks of cards?

Theory Meets Practice: Flashcard Strategies

Psychologists have a theory that should answer that question.

The “spacing effect” says that the same amount of practice spread out over time (“spaced“), rather than done all at once (“massed“), yields more learning.

If a student has — for example — only 5 flashcards in a pile, then she’ll encounter those words more frequently. On the other hand, if she has 20 flashcards in that  pile, then more time passes between each repetition.

5 flashcards = massing; 20 flashcards = spacing. Therefore, 20 flashcards ought to be better.

Nate Kornell, a practical researcher who writes with welcome clarity, tried just this experiment.

Students learned some word pairs with 4 piles of 5 flashcards each. They learned other word pairs with 1 pile of 20 flashcards.

Which flashcard strategy led to better recall the following day?

As the theory predicted, the larger pile of flashcards lead to better memory. In one trial, massed practice resulted in score of 38%. Spaced practice led to a score of 65%.

Crucially: students had the same amount of time to study the same number of words. Simply organizing those words one way (the big pile) rather than the other way (little pile) resulted in more learning.

A Paradox, and a Resolution

In Kornell’s study, larger stacks of flashcards yielded more learning for 90% of the students. And yet, even after they themselves had tried both approaches, 72% preferred the (ineffective) small stacks.

What gives? Why do they prefer ineffective flashcard strategies?

Kornell suspect that students prefer the study approach where they feel they’re making faster progress. Sadly, as happens quite often, the strategy that feels good in fact creates less learning.

Another example of this phenomenon: students typically prefer to reread passages rather than quiz themselves. Rereading doesn’t help them learn much, but it does make them feel more confident. (“I recognize that part! I must have learned it…”)

Flashcard Strategies: The Perfect Number

Given Kornell’s research, it’s tempting to think that students should always sort their flashcards into stacks of 20.

Instead of focusing on number, we should instead focus on relative challenge. The flashcard pile should be big enough so that

a) students feel stretched by the information they’re practicing, but

b) they don’t feel discouraged or overwhelmed.

That number will probably be higher than they would naturally choose. But it won’t be huge.

We might prefer to have more precise guidance than this. However, no one rule will apply equally well to all students.

The correct number of cards in a pile will be different in 2nd grade, 8th grade, and college. It will be different in subjects when students struggle and in subjects where they thrive. It will be different for flashcards that contain a lot of information and those with just a word or two.

Combining our teacherly experience with Kornell’s researcherly insight will lead to the best result we can hope for: flashcard strategies that promote optimum learning conditions.

When brain researchers answer our questions, that feels like helpful advice.

However, when they give us unsolicited advice, that can feel like nagging. After all, teachers and students already have plenty of people telling us what to do.

This truth puts researchers in a bind. If we are doing something foolish, and they know we’re doing something foolish, they (helpfully) want to give us a warning.

But, if we haven’t asked for that warning, then we’re likely to ignore it. In fact, we might even get angry that we got it.

Research-based Advice for Students: The Problem

This paradox has particular power for researchers who want to advise students.

We’ve got lots of research showing that students use highly inefficient study strategies.

Better said: students use strategies that give them the feeling that they’re making progress right now. Sadly, however, those strategies don’t often result in long-lasting learning.

(This review article by Nick Soderstrom does an excellent job sorting through difference between short-term performance and long-term learning.)

Research-based Advice for Students: A Solution

Three scholars — Miyatsu, Nguyen, and McDaniel — have hit upon a strategy to offer advice without seeming to nag.

Rather than tell students to stop doing what they really want to do, they’ve written an article on using the study strategies students already prefer more effectively.

Other such articles might say: “Stop rereading the text! You’re wasting your time!”

This article prefers an alternate approach: “If you’re going to reread the text, here’s the best way to do it.”

For example: long-time readers of this blog know that rereading the text yields much less learning than retrieval practice.

But: college students LOVE rereading the text. 78% of them use it as a core study strategy.

So, Miyatsu & Co. offer some advice:

Rereading works best for factual material.

Rereading works best when there’s a big gap between the first and second read, AND when there’s a big gap between the second read and the test.

Finally, rereading works best when you use particular strategies to be sure you’re learning from that second read.

See? No nagging!

They also have advice for other key study strategies, including highlighting, outlining, and using flash cards.

Research-based Advice for Students: A Hopeful Prediction

Miyatsu, Nguyen, and McDaniel note that college students rely on study habits formed over years. That is: they …

…appear to hold strong preferences for study techniques that they have used throughout their educational careers; consequently, attempts to sell them on new strategies may be met with resistance.

This note implies that those of us who teach younger students can have a powerful effect by shaping study strategies earlier on.

That is: if we can

inculcate the habit of using retrieval practice;

guide students to choose their study locations well;

help them spread practice out over time;

we can create the (good) study habits that will be hard to break.

In other words: Miyatsu’s article might be immensely helpful right now. However, if we can shape our students’ study habits well, they might not need it when they get to college.