Why You Should Make Smart Flashcards

1. Why You Should Make Smart Flashcards Mark Mitchell & Janina Jolley, 2014 Clarion University of Pennsylvania mitchell@clarion.edu jolley@clarion.edu

2. How Can You Learn a Concept?

3. 1. Learn the Key Attributes

4. Example of Learning Attributes Example of Negative Reinforcement • Definition: Negative reinforcement occurs when a behavior is increased by taking away an aversive stimulus. • Key Elements • It must increase behavior • It must involve taking away an aversive stimulus.

5. Problem With Learning Key Attributes Identifying the key elements means thinking in abstract ways that are removed from reality. We typically think in more concrete ways by using real world examples. Love Love

6. How Can You Learn a Concept?

7. 2. Learn Prototypes

8. Example of Using Prototypes Sources of Examples • Class Lectures • Textbook Example “Negative reinforcement occurs when a parent hears crying until the parent holds the baby and so the parent is constantly holding the baby.”

9. Problem With Learning Prototypes Concepts are too general to have one example that captures the concept. For example, no one dog is a perfect example of the concept “dog.”

10. How Can You Learn a Concept?

11. 3. Learn exemplars

12. Example of Exemplar Model Common Source for Model • Observation – you have seen many examples. Example Because you have seen so many examples of dogs, you know what a dog is, and you can recognize many kinds of dogs as dogs–even if you don’t have a definition of “dog” memorized.

13. Two Problems With Learning from Exemplars • For all the concepts you need to learn in a course, will you be able to study enough examples to cover each concept? ? Positive Punishment Negative reinforcement Fixed Schedule Variable Ratio Schedule Schedules of reinforcement Positive reinforcement From examples alone, will you be able to figure out the key features of a concept?

14. Review: Models of Concept Learning and Their Implications for Studying

15. Overgeneralizing: A Big Problem in Concept Formation Even when learning a concept from definitions, prototypes, and exemplars, people often fail to see how that concept differsfrom related concepts. For example, young children often call horses “doggies” because horses, like dogs, have four legs. This kind of overgeneralization is called an overextension error.* Dog?

16. Overextension Errors Overextension errors are likely when a word is used one way in ordinary language, but has a more specific meaning in a specific field.

17. How Can You Avoid Overextension Errors? • It is not enough to learn from positive instances: examples of what the concept is. • You must also learn from negative instances: examples of what the concept is not.

18. How Can You Avoid Overextension Errors? • Getting feedback about negative instances (“that’s not a doggie, that’s a horse”) helps people avoid the overextension error. “Doggie”

19. Conclusions Based on Theory and Research on Concept Learning for Making Flashcards To put new information into your head, you need cards that will help you • Have a meaningful definition of the term; • Have relevant, representative, varied, visual, and meaningful examples of the term; and • Avoid overextension errors.

20. Designing Flashcards That Help You Learn Concepts

21. Example and Elements of an Intelligent Definition Flashcard Number of definition’s key elements you should recall. Term you should not confuse with your term. To avoid ignoring key parts of the definition, definition’s elements are underlined and numbered. Words and terms that are not understood are defined. Front Back Negative reinforcement (2) Definition {Positive punishment} occurs when a ____________ (1) behavior isincreased by__ (2) taking away an aversive__ stimulus._____ ___________ ________________________ “aversive”means unpleasant. ________________________ ________________________

22. Example of What Might Be Added to the Back of a Definition Card Text definition: “Occurswhen a (1)behavior isincreased by_____ (2) taking away an aversivestimulus after the undesired behavior occurs.”_______________________________________________ Warning: I confuse positive punishment with negativereinforcement. They are similar in that both are ways of altering behavior through the use of aversive stimuli._____________________ They are different becausenegative (-)_reinforcementincreases (reinforces) behaviorby taking away (-) an aversive stimulus after thedesired behavior occurs whereas positive (+) punishmentdecreasesbehavior by adding (+) an aversive stimulus after theundesired behavior has occurred.__

23. An Example of an Examples Card The key elements from the definition card have been matched to each example and those elements have been underlined and numbered. Two examples Back Front Negative reinforcement Examples Text/professor example: (2) A baby cries until Mom picks it up.________ (1)Mom picks it up to stop the crying. ______________________________ ______________________________ My example: (2)My dog whines until I start scratching her ears, so (1) I ___ scratch her ears more than I used to because I want to stop the whining. ______________________________

24. What Could Be Added to An Examples Card

25. Final Thoughts • Learning concepts is difficult because a concept can’t be captured by a single example and because you will tend to confuse concepts that sound similar of have similar meanings. • You will tend to think you know a concept when you don’t. This may lead to you being surprised on tests. • Designing your flashcards can help you learn terms. • To learn how to make flashcards that will help you learn terms, see our powerpoint presentation: “Making Flashcards.”

26. References Appleby, D. C. (2013). A flashcard strategy to help students prepare for three types of multiple choice questions commonly found on introductory psychology tests. Retrieved from http://teachpsych.org/Resources/ Documents/otrp/resources/appleby13flashcard.pdf Brown, P. C., Roediger, H. L., III, McDaniel, M. A. (2014). Make it stick: The science of successful learning. Cambridge, MA: Belknap. Young, S. (2010). Learn more, study less! Publisher: Author.

27. Acknowledgments We would like to thank Dr. Jeanne Slattery, Dr. Jamie Phillips, Mr. Ryan Devlin, and Dr. Scott Kuehn for their insightful comments on earlier versions of this presentation.