Back-to-Back: To Basics (Cerego)

 

Breaking Bogart (04)

As the season of summer really begins to ramp up through June, I want to return to a foundational, tried and true method of study: flash cards. In today's post, we will of course discourse more than just the traditional, rectangular pieces of card paper. This blog post will discuss and analyze a teaching technology related to this topic. This back-to-basics concept is the use of flash cards for knowledge retention. The incredible teaching technology is:

Cerego Logo

In case you happen to not be familiar with the near-ancient technology of paper flash cards I will cover their use (in essence) here shortly. Flash cards are a study tool in which one side of a paper card has some sort of term, concept, item, etc. scrawled onto it, and the other side fittingly contains the explanation or definition. Flash cards can be a self actualized study and quiz tool, or an assisted one. The study approach can be taken from many different angles, so to speak. A student could start with the description side, or the term side. They could also decide that a card or set of cards no longer needs to be studied as the terms and definitions are quite easy to recall. Although tried and true, the media on which this form of study takes place inherits many limitations. What limitations these are, and how Cerego innovates beyond these will be a portion of the discussion here today.

example of a flashcard set

What kind of teaching technology is Cerego?

Cerego is an online, digital learning tool for students in which information for any given or assigned course content is: Presented, Quizzed upon, Feedback offered, content is Adapted, and then a report is offered to the student concerning their performance for their Reflection.

Presented: 

Concepts, and information in general, is presented to the student at face value. In this example, a gearing component in its exploded-view form is shown alongside an identifying arrow and its component name. The presentation of this within Cerego is defined to be minimalistic and clear. Overloading the student is not the goal of this teaching technology nor would it be beneficial to the student in general.

Quizzed:

As you can see here, the same component is later presented to the studier. Except in this instance, the proper name for the component, radial springs, has been omitted. Cerego plainly inquires, "Do you know this?" This is a simple yet effective approach from Cerego to the student. They should ask themselves this question and must make a crucial decision if they are confident or not with what they know. The student then must decide to either answer/venture a guess, or review the content for later recollection.

Feedback:

In this example, both content quizzing and immediate feedback are demonstrated by Cerego and its systems. Cerego has let the user know that, in this case, they have answered incorrectly concerning the identification of the same component. This form of unbiased feedback to a knowledge check result is a crucial component of a student progressing through their weak areas of knowledge. There is no, "oh I knew that one just misremembered." Students are much more directly and heavily pushed here to be CONFIDENT that they truly know what they know.

Adapted:

Refer to the same image used for the previous subsection. As mentioned, it is quizzing the student on the terminology used to describe the component. Concerning this, Cerego can adapt/remix/change when and how this quizzing takes place. The technology can present the image first, or ask you to pick an image that best matches the given description. Additionally, Cerego can and will delay/advance the re-introduction and quizzing of a topic as the student may need it. The goal here is multi-faceted. For Cerego to reach its goal of helping students retain knowledge, it must accomplish several difficult tasks. Chiefly, it must keep the student engaged and willing to invest energy and time into the topic and its content. Cerego must also not bombard a person with too many topics, too often. The exact inner workings are very complex and well beyond the scope of this blog. Perhaps in a future blog post I will really dissect and analyze Cerego's content delivery systems.

Reflection:

Just below are two images that are Cerego-generated reports concerning some courses I had taken within the last academic year. Some of my own development, some originating from other instructors, and some a mix. One is a report of Topics of study. And the other image concerns the Concepts presented within said topics.

Topic Report

Within this report, I would like you to direct your attention to two aspects within it. Notice that Cerego uses a time scale to best notify and request that you refresh and solidify your retention of knowledge. This is presented as the red and green text at the left side of the image. (Y-axis). When enough time has passed that the studying student will best benefit from review, a topic, in this case, will enter into that region and the student will be notified to study the topic. What an incredible use of technology! As for the x-axis, you can plainly see different levels used by Cerego which are assigned to a learner's topics of study. These levels are based on the person's performance and repitition relative to time spent. These metrics result in these levels meant to represent how long and well one can recall the information.

The same idea can be applied here to a more granular form of this report as a concept version:

Concept Report

These tools of reflection can be monumental for the longevity of a student's learning and retention of knowledge.

Cerego is an incredible teaching technology for so many reasons. Hopefully I did a decent job of explaining what it is capable of. Cerego helps students retain information, provides learning agency and tools, and presses learners to be accountable for how and when they pursue knowledge and learning.

Specifically for the industry I am involved in, transportation technology, technical knowledge retention is paramount. Technicians must be able to actively and accurately recognize components, procedures, and be able to verbally communicate these with proper vocabulary. With the vast, and I mean VAST, pool of terms, students and technicians would be ill advised to not spend a considerable amount of time memorizing and retaining such crucial information and vocabulary.

On an interesting, more personal note: I get to interact with Cerego courses developed by my colleagues. These allow me to improve my own technical knowledge and retention. I didn't realize this until now, but I have used Cerego as an important resource within my PLN [(Personal Learning Network)(in case you have not encountered that term or forgot)]. More to that point, I have the privilege of experiencing my colleague's study tool design, presentation, and unique skills. Quite the invaluable experience.

I could go on and on about Cerego but I think that is a great place to stop for now. I hope that I sparked some interest within readers of my blog concerning the technology. While I am no expert on it, I am both a personal and impersonal witness to what it can help achieve within students. Front to back flashcard study has arrived at back to back study through teaching technologies!

That's all for this week. I will catch y'all next time.

PEACE OUT!

Vaughn.