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 efficient Once 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 difficulty By 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

Celebration of Teaching and Learning, Feb. 8, 2013 Fin Thank You