Bringing SRS to University Students

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Bringing SRS to University Students - TaylorSan - 2010-02-18

My new job is a work-study at my university with the psychology department. A big part of my job is to create a presentation and teach students about SRS. I'm not sure how it will go, but it is a good opportunity I think. I will start with one of my professors classes, teach them how to use the system, and give them curriculum related cards that I have pre-made. We will design some kind of experiment to see how effective it is, and I will collect feedback from the students. If things go well I hope to take the presentation to faculty in different departments, present to other classes, and spread the word throughout the lands!

Really I have no illusions of grandeur about this. I figure most students don't posses the study habits to make use of it. However many could benefit by knowing about it, and if I can get faculty on board, it is possible to design it's use right into a course curriculum (make them do it!). And if I can pull off a sound presentation that includes good information about memory and long term retention, I think it could be somewhat effective in convincing the students.

My post is to ask the community here for any suggestions they may have. I've never done anything like this, and even being in university is a bit strange for me after doing all different kinds of things for many years outside of academia. I'm also more of an artist than a scientist, so I'm definitely outside my "comfort zone" with all of this. That said, I excited about it all, and I think it will be a good experience.

Many here have extensive knowledge of SRS and academia. I'm open to what anyone may have to say about it all. I'll be figuring this out as I go, so any idea's that come into play can be potentially put into it. Have an idea for an experiment? I might be able to try it out over the next 10 weeks.

I have about 20 hrs a week for the job. This is my first week and working with my prof have planned for about half the hrs for basic research gathering (memory, encoding, SRS) and learning all the tricks and things about anki that I don't know (I'm still in the dark about some of it's features), and the rest for TA stuff and creating cards for my class, and putting together a presentation for my class next week. Next week will probably be focused on designing the structure of the experiment.

I also talked to my 日本語の先生 and he is willing to let me share it with the class too (I won't do a full presentation, just a quick intro to SRS). My motive in all this (besides the money part, which isn't much) is to make people aware of the benefits of SRS. I just hate the cram and forget education system we have! From my limited experience no one I know (besides you all) is even aware of it (SRS).

I will be using anki (because I have it, and know it), and advocating people to make a donation if they use it, but I will be promoting SRS in general and present the options to try to be somewhat impartial. If anyone can tell me about other SRS's that I can include I would be grateful.

Hope to hear from you 皆さん.

Bringing SRS to University Students - TomWatana - 2010-02-18

I wish you good luck on your project! That sounds like a lot of fun.
I'd love to see what kind of journal articles you turn up for this - I'm a psych major with an interest in memory & cognition. (Seriously, I'll pester you for this via email, unless you tell me not to.)

My experience teaching people stuff is that you don't need to be an expert on every last little bit of how the software works, but you do need to practice working with people one on one or in pairs on how to do the first basic steps. Find some undergrads (who want to go to gradschool) the GRE word list deck for anki, and see how they react, and how they interact with it. If you can sell people on the idea that this will actually help them with something they care about, they'll jump through fiery hoops of doom to figure it out. If instead of fiery hoops of doom, you can break it down to five* steps or less, they'll think you are a 神.

Being more of an artist than a scientist will probably help you a lot. Spend more time listening to what people want than trying to sell them on your point of view that SRS is awesome. If they think you care about them, and that Anki is useful, they'll think SRS is awesome.

*"The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information" (Miller 1956) Smile

Bringing SRS to University Students - Sebastian - 2010-02-18

I think it would be useful to include real life examples of people who have used SRS and benefited from it.

It also would be useful to make them realize that an SRS is only a tool, so it doesn't guarantee full success by just using it. You have to adjust your way of using it according to your own expectations and needs.

Finally, even though SRS can be useful for cramming / short or middle term retention, it's meant to help you with long term retention. So, if you don't mean to remember something for a long time it won't be as useful. At the same time, you can't have a full grasp of how it's working for you until you give it enough time.

Good luck with your work, it sounds interesting and I'm certain you'll help people by introducing them to SRS.

Bringing SRS to University Students - Zarxrax - 2010-02-18

SRS doesn't work well with studying for most college classes. I think you need to make sure that they understand this limitation of it. Classes go by the teachers schedule, not the SRS's schedule. For classes that teach you things that you will definitely need to still know a few years down the road, it's definitely worth it. (of course, most college teachers aren't going to tell you that you wont need their material anymore after you pass their class, although its the truth for most classes). I think the hard part is actually picking out which classes are useful to SRS, because its totally not feasible to use it along with every class...

Bringing SRS to University Students - captal - 2010-02-18

I'll also agree with examples- but I think you're going to want to create examples based on your audience. Presenting examples on Japanese probably won't be interesting to students/facility in other areas.

I know I'm met with very mediocre stares when I try to describe Anki to people and why it works so well. Remember that Anki is only useful for remembering hard facts, and things that are concrete. I don't think it'd be useful for teaching people how to LD Wink

You may want to contact Anki's creator Damien- he posts on this forum once in a while- here's the contact link from his site: http://ichi2.net/contact.html

Bringing SRS to University Students - nest0r - 2010-02-18

SRSing in school is a definite part of the future, in my opinion. Finding ways to raise the pros and cons with both professors and students would be good. The sky's the limit with regards to applications, though there's a few naysayers here and there in the forum when it comes to what SRS should be used for. *amiable scowl*

Bringing SRS to University Students - liosama - 2010-02-18

[Image: srs-smoking.png]

Bringing SRS to University Students - TaylorSan - 2010-02-18

hahahaha....

Bringing SRS to University Students - ta12121 - 2010-02-18

lol

Bringing SRS to University Students - TaylorSan - 2010-02-18

Thanks for the quick responses all.

Yeah I will be taking this whole thing in steps. I will design the presentation to be beginner friendly, but I also want to be a bit more knowledgeable than I am at present, so I can show a reasonable degree of credibility when needed, and be better able to address whatever arises. The nice thing about it is that I have huge support from my prof. She's flexible and realistic and for some crazy reason trusts me LOL.

I agree with you Zarxrax that SRS is not suitable for every situation. I will stress the point that it is best used for long term information that is desired or needed. I see it for being useful in subjects like foreign language and terminology that is field specific such as anatomy, law, and history/dates/facts etc. Or someone who wants to school people in Jeopardy! I also think there is a point where it is not needed, as in if you use the knowledge in the field to the point where testing yourself in anki is no longer worthwhile. I will not be selling this thing like snake oil LOL.

One idea we have come up with is that we will design SRS decks that are chapter specific for one or more of my profs classes, and she can build it into the course. The cards would be premade for the students, and using SRS would be an assignment in the course. The cards will probably just be psychology terms, and physiology stuff like parts of the brain. The first step however will be making a small number of cards for next weeks chapter, and then trying it out with the class. It's pretty cool, I'm doing this for a class I'm in!

I think if you could show the value of it to professors (as mentioned, in area's that are a good fit - I agree captal - LD and many things are not good in and SRS), they could get them to make SRS an integral part of their course. This is a longer term goal of mine with this project.

I know it's been discussed around the forum, but feel free to toss out any subjects you feel are relevant to consider for this project if you all feel inclined.

I will be contacting Damien, probably tomorrow, or maybe he will post in this thread.

It will be tricky to measure the experiment perhaps (oh I hate trying to be a scientist), but I'll worry about that next week LOL! Of course I'll post here, and will keep coming back for feedback. And TomWatana I will post the articles I find that I think are best (also see the Ask Nest0r thread I made) sometime this weekend.

Thanks for the positivity everyone!

Bringing SRS to University Students - kainzero - 2010-02-18

I dunno about making the presentation about how long-term memory works...

What really got me into SRS was simple: it's like a smart flashcard system that shows easy stuff less frequently and hard stuff more frequently. Also, it's free and I get to use my computer instead of having piles of paper everywhere. =)

I tried delving into the formulas and how the brain works, but I just got confused, and I hardly ever mess with the settings in Anki since it does seem fairly straightforward.

What I would really want to know if being taught to use it would be how to construct good cards and how to properly grade yourself. I don't know how anyone else uses it, but when I add new stuff, I usually just add it right away without really studying it, and then I fail it 4-5 times before it clicks. With KO2001, I just have a sentence and try to read it, whereas some people write hiragana and make themselves write the kanji for it, some people just learn the kanji in that lesson, etc.

I think card design and grading would be more useful than science-y brain stuff. It's good to have that stuff on hand, but to introduce it to someone IMO would be unnecessary.

It's like a car, we use it to get to places faster and we learn how to drive it. But many of us don't know the formula for combustion or even what happens mechanically when we press down on the gas pedal. =)

Bringing SRS to University Students - TaylorSan - 2010-02-18

Good point, I somewhat agree. Most people just want to drive the damn car, not learn the mechanics (this describes me pretty well). Most of the presentation will be about how to use the SRS. But I think a simple explanation of how the memory works could be helpful, and even motivational as part of it. SRS is not just flashcards - flashcards can be picked up and used when ever one wants, whereas the SRS only works if you use it regularly (optimally daily, or as close to) so you need a different kind of commitment. If the student understands the benefit of the study methods (long term retention) then they may deem it worth while to use. The motivation will come from them seeing that it will make them get more bang for their buck in there studies. But having been trained in the "cram and forget" system, most could use a little information about the way the memory works....and will probably be able to see from personal experience after given the basics of how memory works, that it is worth it to do a little each day, and not have to manage the timing of studying each fact. I think the trick will be to make it simple and logical. You are right, if it gets to technical I will loose a lot of people.

And thats a good point I hadn't considered about the grading part. I got a feel for it, but thinking back, it seems like many who are new to the SRS post questions about this.

Bringing SRS to University Students - Sebastian - 2010-02-18

Something of great importance that most people don't think enough is that the SRSing process can start much before doing your first repetition. Taking the info you're going to study, deciding what will go into the SRS and what will be left out, and the ways in which you're going to format that info can produce hughes differences in your studies.

For example, with Japanese, you can use vocabulary lists. They can be J-E or monolingual. pre-made and downloaded from internet or made by yourself with the words you encounter when reading. They can have or not have example sentences. You can also base your studies in sentence decks. Again, they can be downloaded or made by yourself. You can use English translations from official sources (for example, if you use the Japanese and English versions of a book or website), unofficial translations (like the ones you find at Smart.fm) or no translation at all. You can include in each card the English or monolingual definitions for words you don't know. You can include audio. You can read or write the answers or only answer the questions in your mind. You can print out lists of items from your decks for "offline" reinforcement.

If you use multimedia decks (for example, with Subs2srs), you can use captions or video. You can use or not a translation. You can go through every single line of dialog or go deleting most of them if they are boring or don't anything new. You can put the writing in the front and the audio in the back or vice versa. You can even load the audio into your audio player and listen to it everywhere for reinforcement.

The point is: it is YOUR learning process, so you can take lots of choices and they will affect how you feel about it and how productive it is.

Last but not least, if you use an SRS as part of a course, and there are more people in the same classes using it too, you can work together to create the decks. You can for example create a shared spreadsheet (for example, using Zoho or Google Docs) and take turns to add info into it. Then the rest of the class can check the spreadsheet for accuracy and make some changes if necessary and import it into your SRS. This wave, you can make your work/benefit ratio skyrocket, and even if you only have 1 person working with you, you'll reduce your workload by half. Anyway, you'll save time before you even start doing your repetitions. Oh, and there's always the option to share the final deck with the people who take the same class the next year. You could even create a repository of decks created by the students. I would had absolutely loved anything like that back in the days.

Bringing SRS to University Students - resolve - 2010-02-18

I've been following the thread. If you need more information about the technical side of Anki then you're welcome to email me, but for general SRS theory the advice you've already received seems fine.

Bringing SRS to University Students - kainzero - 2010-02-18

Yeah, I was sorta thinking like sebastian.

Some people were saying here that SRS is only good for memorization of random facts, but I'm not sure. I think it would be great for physics problems and some engineering classes.

When I took engineering, in most classes, the problems we solved were very distinct: you just needed to know which formulas to use and how to derive the variables needed. Setting up the problem was usually the most difficult part.

I'd change my SRS to say "Do problem #3 on page 245," I'd flip to that page, go over it, see if I can set up the problem and map the way to the solution, then check if I'm right. I wouldn't have to solve the problem again, I just need to know how to solve it. In any case, I bet grading it would be different than a rote memorization like with foreign language.

For me, the benefit of SRS was that I would study efficiently and not waste time on crap I already know, and that it maps a plan to study every day and would go over what I may have forgotten. This is awesome for me, since I'm the type who hardly ever studied except in cases when memorization was required with vocabulary in English and in foreign language, and knowing that I'm studying efficiently means that I'm not wasting my time. =)

Bringing SRS to University Students - TaylorSan - 2010-02-18

More good points! Yes! I also have considered the possibilities of interactive decks and group class efforts. My teacher is really responsive to this kind of thing too. The class I am in now is Health Psychology, and there are maybe only 10-12 students. She is really open to letting us have some say in the assignments we do, and having us work together. I love the idea of interactive course work, and students working with professors, and each other. I realize it will always vary from class to class, and there are many old school rigid profs, but I think there are people out there who will be responsive to new models....blah blah blah...

You rase a good point - the value of being able to individually customize your SRS, and the value of community decks. I need to get up to speed with shared spreadsheets... I've never messed with them.

Really there are so many positive points here, I don't think I can address them all as well as I'd like to (need to go study Japanese). Tons of possibilities ...fortunately I have 10 weeks to tinker with it, and an active forum here to meld minds.

Bringing SRS to University Students - tomhogers - 2010-02-19

Don`t forget the basic premise of SRS.

SRS is NOT a tool for learning. It`s a tool for remembering - remembering permanently things already learned.

Bringing SRS to University Students - nadiatims - 2010-02-19

tomhogers Wrote:SRS is NOT a tool for learning. It`s a tool for remembering - remembering permanently things already learned.

Everyone says this but I'm not so sure. For example, When I add new words to my vocab deck, they may not show up until 6 months later (easily long enough to have forgotten the original dictionary look-up) as essentially new information. But these words are still getting slowly shifted into my long term memory resulting in mproved reading/listening speed and comprehension.

Bringing SRS to University Students - hotkiller123 - 2010-02-19

smart.fm explains it quite well and in a motivating manner

you could maybe show a bit of this movie or take ideas out of it

Bringing SRS to University Students - Zarxrax - 2010-02-19

nadiatims Wrote:
tomhogers Wrote:SRS is NOT a tool for learning. It`s a tool for remembering - remembering permanently things already learned.
Everyone says this but I'm not so sure. For example, When I add new words to my vocab deck, they may not show up until 6 months later (easily long enough to have forgotten the original dictionary look-up) as essentially new information. But these words are still getting slowly shifted into my long term memory resulting in mproved reading/listening speed and comprehension.

There's some difference between a vocabulary word and other types of material. With the vocabulary word, usually all you need to do is remember the meaning of it. You automatically have some understanding of the word, you just need to remember it.
Compare this with taking a full, complex sentence from a language that you are unfamiliar with. SRS that sentence all you want, but if you don't UNDERSTAND it from the beginning, you aren't going to understand it a year later, even if you remember it.

Bringing SRS to University Students - TaylorSan - 2010-03-15

こんにちは皆さん

An update:

I presented to my first class last Thursday, and it went fairly well. I think some of the students were definitely interested and excited by the possibilities. I showed them the smartfm video to introduce the basic concepts, and talked a little bit about memory science, long term retention etc. Then I showed them the basics of anki. When I showed them the download deck page I had them throw out a subject, and someone said "biology" - they were pretty impressed when several decks popped up.

For starters, I am just having them check out anki, and maybe download a deck that interests them just to get a feel for it. Each student (there were only 7) was also assigned a few pages from the weeks chapter from which to make a few cards. With this class I can experiment as to what to try doing with the SRS in a class, and hopefully figure out some kind of template for other classes.

I also met with someone who wants me to do a pilot program with faculty at a nursing school this summer. It seems I may be able to try this out in a variety of departments, and be able to design experiments with it.

For now, I’m trying to figure out how to do a community deck for the class. Any suggestions? Is there a way to do this easily in anki? Or should I make a google doc. (like Sebastion suggested) or something that people can copy their card data to and then take the postings from others to cut and paste/create cards in there own decks (or can you import a deck somehow from this????). Or should I make a deck out of the shared doc and then upload that deck ( and can you update/edit uploaded decks, or do you just create new decks). I am trying to figure out the best way to do it, but I am getting a bit confused - I have no experience doing anything like this. There has got to be an optimal way, but I’m not sure how. I need it to be simple so that students don’t have to work too hard just to get their decks.

My other problem is that one student doesn’t have a computer. As this will doubtlessly arise in other classes, I am trying to find the best way to make the Online anki work for her, and get a handle on how to introduce students to it in the future. But I am really confused for some reason there. I also need for her to have access to the class deck.

I thought I would have all weekend to figure this out, but my computer had to go to the shop for three days, and I find myself with less time to fiddle with these things than I’d like (and WAY behind in Japanese reps, sigh). If anyone can offer suggestions about any of this it would be greatly appreciated!

Bringing SRS to University Students - resolve - 2010-03-16

'share' from the decks menu of ankionline to share decks

Bringing SRS to University Students - TaylorSan - 2010-03-16

Ok I made a google doc for the class to make cards on. I then imported from there and made a deck! I then uploaded the deck. This has solved challenge number one I think. Still a little confused about how to update the deck though. Do I create a new zip each time?

I am struggling to figure out the anki online part. I need to be able to have my student create an account, and then get our deck....but I'm confused. Do they just get a subscription to the deck? I am not sure how to find the "key".

Bringing SRS to University Students - resolve - 2010-03-16

The key is private. You only tell it to the people you want to share the deck to.

Bringing SRS to University Students - Nukemarine - 2010-03-16

Taylor,

In AnkiOnline, you have the option to share your deck. With that, you're given a "key" which others can use to access that deck. With that, they can add new material to the deck which will be added to your deck when you sync. Note: deleted cards are not removed from the shared file (unless that has changed) so don't worry about that much but still keep backups.

1. Sync up with AnkiOnline a deck you want to share.
2. On AnkiOnline, log in and click on deck
3. The deck you sync'd should be there
4. Click on "share"
5. The share code should be there, along with a link to help explain the process
6. Select the option "Share this deck with other people"
7. Now people can use the code

To sync with a shared deck

1. Log into AnkiOnline
2. Click on "subscriptions"
3. Paste the code into the block.
4. The deck is now available to use.

What I noticed is that display and deck properties are not copied over. So to change those you need to use a local Anki program to make the deck look like you wish. Any thing some sharing the deck adds you should see on your next sync and vice versa.

Now, this is different from uploading a deck. An uploaded deck is set so anyone can download and use. Any changes are not reflected on the deck available on the Anki site. These are best for finished products.

Also, you may not want to make a code publicly available via a newsgroup. Anyone may be able to go in and add 50 megs of junk.

Resolve, when you start your subscription process it may be to your financial benefit to offer "group accounts" of sorts. Something like a professor gives a list of accounts that'll need 4 months of membership and hands over 500 dollars via PayPal.