A How-to Guide for Flashcards

For many students, flashcards have been a game-changer! They are time-efficient, easy to use, and extremely effective, especially for those little details in memorization-heavy courses 😁

There are many ways to use flashcards and even more platforms dedicated just to flashcard making! But, how can you maximize the power of flashcards? 💪

Here are my tips and tricks for becoming THE flashcard master 👑

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💻 Choose the Right Platform

Flashcards have become an industry (well, kind of)! There are many different platforms to construct your flashcards. Here are my personal favorites:

1. Anki

Anki is a beast of a flashcard-making machine. It’s biggest flex is that there is an algorithm that customizes the frequency at which you see a flashcard based on your reported level of difficulty with the flashcard. In other words, it will tell you which cards to review every day for maximum memorization potential.

This app is PERFECT for your heavy memorization courses (science students, this is where it is at)! There are also many additional features including algorithm customization, diagram labeling, and more!

Read more about my Anki experience in this blog post: LINK

2. Quizlet

This platform is a great choice for flashcard beginners! It is easy to use and allows you to start cards that you would like to repeat. There are also flashcard decks that other students have made that are accessible to you—this can be extremely helpful when it comes to specific courses that may already have decks made by other students.

To be honest, you can’t go wrong with Quizlet. I almost feel like everyone starts with this platform before moving to more advanced platforms, such as Anki. A great choice overall! 

3. Notion

Notion is a platform that offers a wide array of features including the option to create built-in flashcards into your notes. Essentially, you can create a page for a lecture and take notes as usual. Then, you can convert the notes into flashcards using the ‘toggle’ feature that hides part of the notes on the page.

This can be a great time-saving resource if you like to create a page of notes for all your lectures; you can simply add toggles to the notes for built-in flashcards!

📝 Learn How to Format the Flashcards

Formatting your cards is essential for the most useful recall during exams!

First, label your flashcard decks clearly. I like to make a flashcard deck for each exam’s content and use the course code and exam number on the label.

Next, ensure you choose the “question” part of the flashcard carefully. Consider how the concept will be tested on your exam. For instance, if your exam is multiple choice with vocabulary in the question stem, you likely would want to create a card for each vocabulary word. Personally, I like to have a flashcard per concept!

🤔 Decide How to Incorporate Them into Studying

Most importantly, how do you want to use your flashcards? There are many ways to use flashcards and it really depends on personal preference!

1. Flashcard all the content

You may choose to study the material solely based on flashcards because you learn well with flashcards! If this is the case, create flashcards for all the content of your lectures and review them regularly.

2. Flashcard weak spots

Perhaps, flashcards aren’t really your thing. You can try learning the content through your usual studying methods (eg. making notes, reviewing lectures) and then creating flashcards a few days before the exam for details that don’t stick!

Personally, this is my go-to method for using flashcards :)

3. Flashcard small memorization details

Sometimes, you understand all the concepts but your class has a lot of minor details to memorize. Instead of making flashcards for everything (big concepts and minor details), only make cards for the minor details and focus on understanding the big concepts using other strategies (eg. mind maps, talking out loud). 

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I hope this post provides you with insight into using flashcards! I tried to summarize all the lessons I’ve learned through the years. Good luck with your flashcard building!

All my best,

N