I just started nursing school. Should I use flash cards in all my courses?

Answer 1

I agree with these two experts! You'll find what learning style tools work best for you when you try them and correlate them to your performance outcomes. I love flashcards as they can be carried with you and reviewed frequently and almost anywhere.

If repetition helps you, consider taping your lectures while you take outlined notes and then go back and re-listen to the lecture and enhance your notes. This is a bit more time consuming but it helps enhance and absorb newly learned material.

Answer 2

I agree with the previous answer and I would add it also depends on your specific learning style. If you are someone that needs to do, feel, or act out an idea, then YES, flashcards are for you. For basic definitions I highly recommend flashcards as they are an easy way to test yourself. (The act of creating them also impacts your ability to recall as well, so I encourage making your own instead of using someone else's "set".

Other options for content that will give you a much better relationship with the content is comparing and contrasting information and concepts, This allows you to acknowledge the conceptual idea but then to use that knowledge and relate it to another topic. For instance, comparing and contrasting Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, the similarities, differences, causes, treatments, etc.

Hope this helps! Good luck :)

Answer 3

Flashcards are a great study tool. But as some of you may know to make them can be a bit time-consuming. So, are they worth the effort?

Yes. However, it certainly depends on the course you are enrolled in. Flashcards are best for courses which require students to recall large amounts of content. Consider pharmacology. This course requires students to learn medications, side effects, dosing, nursing interventions, and adverse effects in a short period of time. Using flashcards in this course will help you with memorization and understanding.

Now consider pathophysiology. Flashcards are useful in this course when it comes to learning new terminology. However, working through case studies and doing a question review may offer more success here. Bottom line, flashcards are excellent for courses which require active recall of information.