After trialling Anki App with four classes, I selected the Key Stage 3 English class as the experimental group.
This case study shares the experience of using AI informed flashcards (Anki App) with a mixed prior attainment, all male, Key 3 English class for the past two months. When I say “wrapping up” – I mean, ‘we’ were are almost finished with our initial investigations as will definitely be using Anki decks to support our next unit on Othello.
Why Anki
I was using a “Retrieval Roulette” to present low stakes, quizzing, at the start of class with the aim of building “success-motivation-success” momentum. Having written and refined approaching two hundred questions for Year 9 “A Christmas Carol” (and Y8 “Hound of the Baskervilles”) I wanted an even greater return on this investment (ROI).
PS. With hindsight, I fell into the same trap as most teachers. Seeing retrieval as a post teaching tool. Think more of it as test-enhanced learning. Before, during and after teaching. March 25th 2022
There are a number of platforms that offer flashcards creation tools, I selected Anki App because it was online and mobile app. Second – because I wanted the students to benefit from retrieval practice. To allow pupils learning to benefit from controlled forgetting, rather than from just “some extent” of forgetting.
Remembering is greatly aided if the first presentation is forgotten to some extent before the repetition occurs.
Henry L. Roediger III
Teacher feedback
Having written the questions and answers, the cards, creating a deck is easy. Uploading a sheet into the system, easier and quicker than editing the cards with Anki. Also do not forget to include tags.
- Sharing a deck with students is easy enough if you follow the instructions carefully and pupils have access to shared area.
- The ability to “tag” questions is very useful and I will make more of that feature moving forward.
- Anki App does not have an admin panel or group analytics. I can therefore not offer an evidenced based analysis but what I can offer you is my professional perspective, a summary from their assessments and direct feedback from the students.
- After the hubbub of setting up and logging in – lessons were very calm, almost silent given the personalised nature of learning.
Anki offers a very versatile solution for students to learn when not in class, review missed lesson content or review lesson content. An Anki session is a useful option when lessons are subject to planned disruption – eg medical / photos / where only part of the class are planned to be absent.
Student feedback
Students are, and have been, very positive about learning with Anki.
Students liked;
- The instant feedback
- The flexibility and mobile learning aspect of Anki – both in school and on the App. “I can review a Deck anywhere, at any time. My parents see it as learning and not me being on my phone.”
- The App – students like the easy of a default App.
- “It feels like recapping a lessons.”
- “It can be quite relaxing. (Low stakes)
- Anki enables us to catch up on missed classes (that may be true to an extent). There was a sense that the app was available, “even if Mr Still is not.”
- “I can practice or selected areas / chapters via tags.” The tags were very well supported by the students. Two students discussed with me how they like to know “what they are learning” and “where it is in the book.”
- I like questions around the book as well as questions about the book (contextual and knowledge)
- Offline* – Anki is available offline once the Deck is downloaded this is highly regarded
- “Notifications remind me to practice.”
- Students are now creating their own flashcards for other subjects
How much Anki?
It was easy to see that this form of personalised learning was powerful and successful. In the end of term pupil feedback form, pupils were ask how many Anki sessions they would like, none, 1/5, 2/5, 3/5? inferring that there had to be a taught element.
80% of students selected an increase from 1 Anki session to 2 Anki sessions per week. 20% selecting the current 1 Anki session per week. Professionally I would see value in an Anki lesson 1/10 in part due to the effort required to book, set up and pack away the laptops.
Students are also telling me that they would rather “Anki” (it’s become its own verb) than complete the set homeworks. Consequently, I have had to follow up on the formal set homeworks and now offer alternates! The issue here – tracking and monitoring their commitment beyond scores of the “controlled conditions” quiz. Students are assessed under “controlled conditions” fortnightly. The last four assessment group mean 3.15, 4.44, 4.90, 5.45 out of 10. Something is working in their favour.
PPS What I would now reflect upon as spacing or distribution, although this is also inherent in the Anki App algorithm – March 25th 2022.
Moving forward
After the break we move onto Othello (Y8 onto Romeo and Juliet). Today, the students asked “will there be an Anki for that?” The simple answer is yes however I will be giving the deck “build” and tags some serious thought. The questions need to promote thinking rather than just wrong or right responses.
Decks questions categories: “Vocab,” by Act, “Literary devices,” as applied to the text and the knowledge organiser are already completed. 150 cards or so for each Deck. In that sense, the deck is fast supporting and reinforcing the knowledge of the knowledge organiser.
Next – “Keywords,” and “Conventions, Context and Author.”
Then – “Questions,” by Act. I am considering questions from key textual references and then key knowledge/signposting.
Any help of the later two would be appreciated and I am happy to share the completed Decks.
PPS Two years later, the tags are set. All Shakespeare play decks have a common format but now with Categories and Tags – March 25th 2022.
Of course, we now have a solution to the shortfalls of Anki App – RememberMore.