Wisconsin by Ashley

Wisconsin by Ashley - May 2016 Scholarship Essay

My favorite type of study method is memorization games. Technically this could be as simple as flashcards and straight memorization, but one website I’ve found has a game that takes flashcards you create and turns it into a matching game (like bejeweled).I have recently used this method to learn all seventy-one hiragana in the Japanese writing style in under a week. In the game I have the word, or in this case the caricature, on the left, and the definition on the right. By clicking corresponding cards you earn points. The game also implements the colors of the cards, if you can match three or more they will reshuffle and give you more points. If you make a wrong match and the card turns grey, you can no longer match it with same color cards.

I think this helps me because it makes it more like a fun challenge to correctly answer the questions over sitting and guessing at the answers alone. The game keeps me accountable by not only rewarding a correct answer, but giving an appropriate loss for an incorrect answer. Even after I can answer all of the cards correctly, I like to go back and see how quickly I can clear the board, it reinforces the things I intend to learn in a way I can truly enjoy.
Another thing that makes this method effective in my opinion has to look back in the notes from the class or other source materials to find the answers, as well as simply the act of weighting the information. In my experience doing so can help me memorize things much faster and make a connection between the word and definition.

The final thing that makes memorization games so useful is that you can do them almost anywhere. The website I use has a mobile app so on long car rides, or in waiting rooms I could be playing the matching games. Even classic flashcards are easy to take with you. The important part is that most of these games you may not even need a desk or need to write which makes them much more convenient, and likely to be implemented.