Flashcards 101
There is a vast difference between a flashcard (meh) and a Flashcard™ (yaas).
A 'meh' flashcard, is a colourless, basic, unstimulating, useless, waste of a lined recatngle of card, or this can also refer to the overcrowded, waffle-filled, blinding mess of highlighter/gel-pen chaos that is on the other end of the spectrum.
A 'yass' flashcard lies directly in the middle. You need to strike the balance between being concicse, yet providing enough detail to answer the question in a way that will get you all the marks.
My golden rule would be don't go OTT (over-the-top), in terms of both colour and info.
Black as the main body colour with a single legible colour to write key words, that can also be given as prompts by the person asking the question.
Underline neatly any exact words or phrases stated on the mark scheme - tell whoever is testing yu, that you need to mention these word for word in your answer in order to put the card aside.
NO FLUORESCENT COLOURS UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES - apart from them being ugly and incredibly offensive to look at, there is reasearch that writing in fluorescent colours makes it harder for the brain to process them, and therefore the info is unlikely to be remebered. Fluorescent highlighters, on the other hand, can be used for highlighting ONLY, but use sparingly - I prefer neutral or pastel tones. See examples in the photos.
In the case of my geography case study summary flashcards, I colour-coded the top of each card with a single band of colour that related to each topic, to make it easier to order them and find the desired card quickly. At the front of this flashcard pack, I made a key for the colours used.
NEVER leave flashcards loose as they will become muddled and destroyed at the bottom of your ag, or lost on your desk. Take pride in them - store them by clipping each subject stack with a bulldog cip, then putting them into a nice box you can get for Paperchase or WHSmiths. If you've spent ages making quality flashcardsfor end of year exams and mocks, then ou can carefully save them for your actual GCSE which will save you time that can be spent doing past papers, or actually testing yourself using the flashcards!
A good flashcard needs to have a memorable layout so that you can rember its contents when answering a question relevant to it in an exam. Little diagrams of doodles are great memory aids and ake them less dull to look at. This is particularly important, if you're a visual learner, like me.
A flashcard should never be crammed full of info nor should it consist of a single term and definition. The best way to get the content into your head is create links to other areas within the topic, or cross topic, to reinforce the ideas or concepts. On one side I might have the digestive enzymes' names and functions, whilst on the reverse, I might have the tests for glucose, starch and lipids.
Flashcards can be used in numerous ways:
slef testing
Study groups (with people who are also studying the subject, so will understand the content of your flashcards, so can ask additional questions related to the topic if they've seen them on a past paper etc.)
Parent/sibling/relative testing -where they have no idea what you're talking about - this usually is a good idea if you need to rember those exact underlined phrases from the mark scheme, as they won't knw if you've got the answer right if you use different phrasing of give info not on the card.
A 'meh' flashcard, is a colourless, basic, unstimulating, useless, waste of a lined recatngle of card, or this can also refer to the overcrowded, waffle-filled, blinding mess of highlighter/gel-pen chaos that is on the other end of the spectrum.
A 'yass' flashcard lies directly in the middle. You need to strike the balance between being concicse, yet providing enough detail to answer the question in a way that will get you all the marks.
My golden rule would be don't go OTT (over-the-top), in terms of both colour and info.
Black as the main body colour with a single legible colour to write key words, that can also be given as prompts by the person asking the question.
Underline neatly any exact words or phrases stated on the mark scheme - tell whoever is testing yu, that you need to mention these word for word in your answer in order to put the card aside.
NO FLUORESCENT COLOURS UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES - apart from them being ugly and incredibly offensive to look at, there is reasearch that writing in fluorescent colours makes it harder for the brain to process them, and therefore the info is unlikely to be remebered. Fluorescent highlighters, on the other hand, can be used for highlighting ONLY, but use sparingly - I prefer neutral or pastel tones. See examples in the photos.
In the case of my geography case study summary flashcards, I colour-coded the top of each card with a single band of colour that related to each topic, to make it easier to order them and find the desired card quickly. At the front of this flashcard pack, I made a key for the colours used.
NEVER leave flashcards loose as they will become muddled and destroyed at the bottom of your ag, or lost on your desk. Take pride in them - store them by clipping each subject stack with a bulldog cip, then putting them into a nice box you can get for Paperchase or WHSmiths. If you've spent ages making quality flashcardsfor end of year exams and mocks, then ou can carefully save them for your actual GCSE which will save you time that can be spent doing past papers, or actually testing yourself using the flashcards!
A good flashcard needs to have a memorable layout so that you can rember its contents when answering a question relevant to it in an exam. Little diagrams of doodles are great memory aids and ake them less dull to look at. This is particularly important, if you're a visual learner, like me.
A flashcard should never be crammed full of info nor should it consist of a single term and definition. The best way to get the content into your head is create links to other areas within the topic, or cross topic, to reinforce the ideas or concepts. On one side I might have the digestive enzymes' names and functions, whilst on the reverse, I might have the tests for glucose, starch and lipids.
Flashcards can be used in numerous ways:
slef testing
Study groups (with people who are also studying the subject, so will understand the content of your flashcards, so can ask additional questions related to the topic if they've seen them on a past paper etc.)
Parent/sibling/relative testing -where they have no idea what you're talking about - this usually is a good idea if you need to rember those exact underlined phrases from the mark scheme, as they won't knw if you've got the answer right if you use different phrasing of give info not on the card.
Comments
Post a Comment