Help students study with digital flash cards

Guess: what is one of the most effective ways students can learn new material?

It might not be what you think -- it's not creating diagrams or concept maps, and elaborating on those, or re-reading material, or highlighting, or going over notes. It's...

...retrieval practice.

Or in layman's terms: quizzing. (More about that here and here, in the New York Times, here in one of the original studies published, and here, in a study about optimal spacing of retrieval practice.)

Now, "retrieval practice" can mean a variety of techniques -- the initial study that prompted this conclusion involved students engage in a "free recall" writing quiz.  But the effects also seem to hold for many forms of quizzing, including a time-tested and time-honored method:

flash cards.

(Streicher, Diane. "Flash Cards - Latin." Photograph. 4 May 2012. 

"Flashy Fun." Diane Again. Web. 08 Nov. 2013.)

Index cards work great -- but you can also create and distribute digital sets for your students to use for your specific content - any student with a smart phone can study anywhere -- on a bus going to a sports game, waiting in line at Starbucks, or while waiting for a parent pick-up.

However, there are two problems with most digital flash card sites (for our purposes): they either a) require students to sign in with personal info, or b) expose students to advertising.

Solution #1: Embed a Google Presentation on your website

You can just create a Google Presentation, with slides that alternate between the terms and the definitions/images, etc. If you embed it on your site, kids can look at them on the site itself, and click through (or use arrow keys) to toggle back and forth between terms/definitions/images (you could even embed videos!)

You can see a live example here:

Solution #2: Use Cram.com

Warning: 

If students use Cram.com, they could stumble upon some inappropriate flashcards, which describe/define a range of sexual practices, bodily functions, etc. 

Because it is a resource actually used by college students, there are sets of flashcards for college courses that are appropriate at that level, but not at ours -- for example, sets of flashcards for many courses about adult topics, including psychology courses on human sexuality, anatomy courses on the male and female reproductive organs, etc.  

In using sites like this, students are able to search using keywords for any topic they like, and they may find some keywords that you and their parents DON'T like. 

These are legitimate courses of study - but probably not something you want students to learn in YOUR class -- or have to defend to a parent why their child has learned about "frotteurism" in Global Studies.

Failing that, I recommend using planate, multi-fiber, Betula papyrifera cellulose rectangular prisms, encoded bilaterally with analog information in a viscous suspension of solvents, pigments, dyes, resins, lubricants, solubilizers, surfactants, particulate matter, and fluorescers -- otherwise known as...

...index cards.

However, it is a great resource for students in college or beyond -- so here it is:

Cram.com seems to have found a way to exist without subjecting its users to ads.

You can create an account as a teacher, and create sets of flashcards for your students - even adding images.

Then, students can search for your flash cards on the site -- and there are a variety of tools they can use to help memorize them, and then quiz themselves.

Here's a link to a tiny set I've created, so you can try it yourself:

Or, you can have students do the work...

Students can even create their own accounts and sets of cards, as long as they use their school Gmail account to create an account and DO NOT put any personal information in the Profile. Just have them sign into their school Gmail account first, then go to Cram.com, and click Sign Up, and "Sign up with Google."

Let me know if you want help to try these out!