We’re going to be reviewing in the weeks ahead some methods to help your students study. This week we’ll be reviewing memorization techniques. Today we’re going to be talking about one of my favorite memorization techniques – flashcards.
There are many different ways you can help your student study by using flashcards, just like any of the methods we talk about you’ll want to try them all and then chose the one that works best for the student.
Flashcards you create yourself
When I was in nursing schools I used flashcards to help me pass my classes and then my NCLEX test. I did this using the old fashioned technique of figuring out the content that I needed to learn and then writing the questions / topic on one side of an index card and the answer on the other. This worked well, I think it helped almost as much to write everything down. We had a study session every weekend with four or five other students and we would use those flashcards between major topics that we were studying.
Things to remember: With flashcards you create, make sure to check and double check the information you put on them is correct. If the information is wrong then you’ll be learning something that won’t help you pass a test.
Online Flash Cards –
There are several different services online that offer free flashcards for almost any topic imaginable. An example is this service.
https://quizlet.com/help/2444092/how-do-i-study-with-flashcard-mode
The flashcards are made by different people – if you’re using this with your student then MAKE SURE the flash cards you use are correct. I’ve found the best way to use this method is to prepare the flash cards together with your student.
Purchasing them online –
You can purchase flash cards from Amazon. If you’re doing this make sure to check out the reviews from people that purchased the product. If there are a whole lot of one star reviews then the product probably doesn’t do a very good job.
Long-term learning.
I was in the Army for awhile during the time when there was an East and West Germany, and my duty was to guard the border between the two countries. We used flash cards with normal playing card numbers on the front. This helped us learn the things we were supposed to learn (we needed to know what the silohette (or shadow) of all of the enemies vehicles looked like. In the first Desert storm we were also issued playing card / flash cards that showed faces of the enemy and customs. You can create your own cards for these especially for long term study products (like the NCLEX, Law exam, etc.).
Do you have any ideas for using flash cards? Let us know in the comments.