Why Anki?
In this post I introduce you to the digital flashcards software Anki. Enjoy 😊
There are many possibilities for how to use flashcards. First of all, there is the classic approach using paper flashcards and a pen. Even though I know about the advantages of this method, I am no fan of it as I find the writing of the cards annoying and very time consuming. Once, I miscalculated the time it took to write the cards so much that I only finished writing them two days before the exam. You can imagine what that resulted in. The sole act of making the cards of course didn’t have a sufficient learning effect to result in a satisfactory grade.
There is, however, another possibility. The use of digital applications. With these you create the flashcards digitally which is an advantage, as most students are able to type quicker than they can write. Additionally, you can use the speech to text function on your phone to save even more time. Anki is the best of such applications. Its main advantage that sets it apart from similar apps is its algorithm. It helps tremendously in learning more efficient and retaining more content in your memory.
Let’s assume you are using the conventional flashcards and you use them perfectly (unlike I did). So you write the necessary cards for the topics that were talked about in class and you do that every week throughout the entire semester. At the end of the semester, you work intensely with those flashcards and sure enough you’ll see some progress and success. After all, flashcards are one of the most effective learning tools. Nevertheless, there is always room to improve the learning process using flashcards and even save some time while doing so. The main reason is because there are going to be cards that you’ll remember more easily than others. If you always repeat learning the entire pile of cards, those easier cards will appear too often and you waste valuable time going through cards that you already know.
Of course, you can make several piles for cards that you know already. But it is still tough to say how well you know a specific card compared to others in that pile and should you have hundreds of cards to learn, this system gets messy very quickly.
How does the Anki-Algorithm work?
With Anki you don’t have to worry about getting confused with all those cards. The app automates the entire process. While you are using the app, the algorithm puts each flashcard in one of three categories: Easy, Good and Difficult. Depending on whether you knew a specific card, the app changes the sequence of the flash cards. A card that is labelled as difficult would then reappear again after about 10 minutes of learning. Easier flashcards on the other hand, will reappear on the following day. Should you forget the right answer for a specific card and you give the wrong answer, this card will be recategorized and will appear more often from then on. All of this only works if you are honest and correctly click the buttons to tell the app whether you were wrong or right. Only then will the cards appear in the correct frequency.
Anki is available as a desktop version and as an application for your phone which means that you’ll be able to learn anytime anywhere as long as you have a stable internet connection. Use that to your advantage and learn while you are waiting for the bus or for your noodles to be done when you are cooking.
Using the three most important learning principles
You’re taking advantage of some of the best learning strategies with Anki. The first one is Interleaving, because not the same cards about a single topic are constantly being asked, but the deck of flashcards contains many different topics. Spaced Repetition is also used, because the cards recur at certain intervals, so instead of learning just one topic for a day, the topic as a whole occurs more frequently throughout the week. The third strategy used with Anki is Active Recall, because only the question is shown and get to the solution by recalling what you have already learned without looking in the script. The review takes place only after you have answered from memory.
How to install Anki
If you are interested in the app, you can download it for free at https://apps.ankiweb.net/. The default setting is good enough to start with. If you want to customize your learning even better and let the algorithm work even better for you, you can manually set the time windows for repetitions or the reappearance of the already learned cards. In the following chapter I briefly describe the forgetting curve. This is followed by the settings that best fit the forgetting curve and are thus optimally matched to it.
The forgetting curve according to Hermann Ebbinghaus
The German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus discovered the forgetting curve in 1885. Through self-experimentation, he had found out how long it takes for people to forget things again. In his experiments, he randomly memorized syllables. He then tested his memory performance at specified intervals.
The result of his experiments was, in short, that after 20 minutes of initial learning, only 60% could be reproduced from memory. After a period longer than 6 days, only 15% of what was learned before was reproduced correctly. The findings of his work can still be regarded as valid today after several follow-up studies by other scientists. What was found in the studies that followed was that there are differences in learning ability depending on the type of thing learned. Laws and principles, for example, are better retained in memory than poems or prose or the meaningless syllables learned by Ebbinghaus.
For the settings in Anki, I used the forgetting curve as a blueprint. With this you are definitely on the safe side, because enough repetitions are planned for each type of learning content. Depending on the topic you can also use larger time intervals. The further findings regarding the forgetting curve show us that the learning material should best be structured and learned in the form of principles and regularities. This increases the chance that the forgetting curve will be flatter than shown in the diagram. So, take some time when creating the flashcards.
The optimal settings
In this video I’ll show you my recommended settings and how to adjust them:
- Create and name a new stack
- In the settings, click on Options then Manage and lastly on Add
- Choose any name and confirm
- Enter the settings shown in the video
- Confirm with OK
The settings are based on the forgetting curve and the Youtube video by Suppy, M.D. (link at the end of the blog post). The „Learning levels in minutes“ setting in the „New cards“ tab specifies when a card will be displayed the next time. Based on the forgetting curve, that’s after one day, after three days, and after six days. The last time the card is displayed is after 15 days, before it is saved as understood in Anki if answered correctly. The order is set to „random“ so that the learner does not get used to any pattern. The rest of the settings on the tab remain at default.
The Youtuber advises not to click „easy“ when answering questions. Cards that are easy are best not saved as flashcards in the first place. A simple example here would be the capital of France.
In the “Reviews”-tab you should set the „Maximum reviews per day“ to 9999. The algorithm will then not be disturbed in its calculations. The rest remains at default.
The „lapses“ tab is about the cards that were previously saved as understood. If you answer the understood cards incorrectly, they are saved as failures and then displayed depending on the setting of the tab. „Steps (in minutes) “ influences when the card is displayed the next time, here after 20 minutes. If you would leave the „new interval“ setting at 0%, the card will reappear as if it were a new card. So here the complete cycle starts as in the „new cards“ tab. To be a little fairer with us, let’s set this to 70%. The card then appears a bit less often than the completely new cards. The minimum interval is set to 2 days based on the Youtuber’s explanations.
The „Leech threshold “ is changed to 8. 8 lapses means: If you answer the card wrong eight times then whatever you specify under „Leech action“ happens. The default setting is „Suspend card“. But we don’t want that, because that would mean that the card doesn’t appear anymore. That’s why we choose „tag only“. Anki will then just tells us that we have already answered this card wrong 8 times.
Now click OK and you are done with the settings for Anki. If you want to use the settings for other stacks, you simply have to click on the settings for the individual stack as shown in the video and select the respective setting under „Options group“. The setting will then apply to that stack.
Good luck! 😊
References:
for the Anki settings:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XaJjbCSXT0
forgetting curve:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vergessenskurve
https://blog.neuronation.com/de/die-vergessenskurve-nach-dr-ebbinghaus/
