Education and demonstration – Psychology
Reexamination Certificate
1999-12-30
2003-11-25
Hughes, S. Thomas (Department: 3714)
Education and demonstration
Psychology
C434S322000, C434S323000, C434S362000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06652283
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system, apparatus and method for learning, and more specifically, relates to a system, apparatus and method for interactively and adaptively maximizing the effectiveness and efficiency of learning, retaining and retrieving knowledge and skills including flexibly scheduling learning, retaining and retrieving knowledge and skills based on various factors and input information.
2. Description of Background Art
Previous systems and methods for learning have focused on presenting an item or items to be learned in a paired-associate format, such as a cue and response system. These prior art systems and methods have relied heavily on the motivation and metacognitive skills of the student and therefore, have varying degrees of effectiveness and efficiency. More importantly, such prior art methods and systems have very limited success in terms of a student actually acquiring knowledge or skills rapidly, ensuring that the student maintains the knowledge and skills to a high degree of retention for an extended period of time, and enabling the student to retrieve knowledge and skills automatically at some future date.
In a well known prior art method, a paired-associate learning method is embodied in a group of flashcards which may be presented manually or electronically via a computer, for example. In a typical example of such a method, a student starts by separating flashcards into two groups: known and unknown. The student studies each unknown flashcard by first viewing the question on one side of the flashcard and then formulating a response to the question. The student then turns the card over and views the answer provided. The student judges the adequacy of his response by comparing his answer to the correct answer. If the student believes he has learned or “knows” the paired-associate, that flashcard is placed in the group of known items. When the student has studied all of the flashcards in the first unknown group, and all of the flashcards have been transferred to the group of known flashcards, the student may review the group of known items in the same manner as described above. In an alternative method, the cards can be shuffled for learning. Thus, in this method, the learning and review is performed by a student simply looking at flashcards to determine correct responses and reviewing the flashcards as desired, with no fixed schedule or sequence.
In another method invented by B. F. Skinner, a method of learning and reviewing is provided. More specifically, Skinner discloses a machine which presents a number of paired-associate questions and answers. The learning machine has an area for providing questions, and an area where the user writes in an answer to these questions. At the time the question is presented, the correct answer is not visible. A student reads a question and then writes in an answer in the area provided. The user turns a handle which causes a clear plastic shield to cover his answer while revealing the correct answer. The user judges the adequacy of his response. If the user judges that his answer is adequate, he slides a lever which punches a hole in the question and answer sheet and turns a handle revealing the next question. If the answer is judged to be inadequate, the user simply turns a handle revealing the next question. After all of the questions have been answered a first time, the user can make a second pass through the questions and answers. The machine operates such that only the questions which were answered incorrectly in the first pass are viewable during the second pass so as to provide a review of questions which were answered incorrectly. Thus, this conventional method provides a crude method of enabling review of missed questions.
A slightly more advanced method was invented by Sebastian Leitner and described in “So Lernt Man Lernen.” The method involves studying flashcards as in the method described above, but in addition, involves using a specially constructed box to calculate review schedules. More specifically, the box has five compartments increasing in depth from the first compartment to the fifth compartment. According to Leitner's method, a student takes enough “unknown” flashcards to fill the first compartment and places them in the first compartment. The student begins by taking the first card out of the box and reading the question. The student then constructs an answer and compares it to the correct answer on the back of the card. If the student is correct, the student places the flashcard in the second compartment. If the student cannot construct an answer, or if the student's answer is incorrect, the student places the flashcard at the back of the group of cards in the first compartment. This process continues until all of the cards have been moved to the second compartment and the student stops the learning session. The next learning session begins by placing new “unknown” cards into the first compartment. The process of studying and sorting is performed as described above until once again, no cards remain in the first compartment. At some future date, the second compartment will be full of cards placed there during previous learning sessions. At that time, the student begins to study the cards in the second compartment, except this time, known cards are placed into the third compartment and unknown cards are placed backed into the first compartment. New cards are continually introduced into the first compartment and are moved through the compartments as they are learned and reviewed Cards that are easily remembered or known are moved from the more shallow compartments to the deeper compartments and therefore are reviewed less and less frequently. Cards that are more difficult to learn are put back into the more shallow compartments for more frequent review. This method provides a crude form of scheduled review of learned items based on item difficulty.
A computer-based version of Leitner's method is provided in the German language computer software program entitled Lernkartei PC 7.0 and in the Spanish language computer software entitled ALICE (Automatic Learning In a Computerized Environment) 1.0. With ALICE 1.0, question and answer units are presented to a user and the number of cards and interval of time between study sessions are distributed to adapt to a user's work habits.
Other conventional methods have recognized the importance of developing a system to present items for review. For example, a computer program developed by Piotr Wozniak in Poland and referred to as “SuperMemo” uses a mathematical model of the decline of memory traces to determine spacing of repetitions to maintain long term retention of paired-associates.
In another prior art method described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,545,044, 5,437,553 and 5,577,919 issued to Collins et al., paired-associates are presented to a user for learning. However, unlike the conventional methods described above, in this invention, the user is first queried as to whether a particular item is perceived to be known or unknown, not whether the user actually knows the item, or knows the correct answer to a question. That is, a user is asked to determine whether they think they know the correct response to the cue, not what the correct response actually is. Then, a sequence of perceived known items and perceived unknown items is generated and presented to the user in the form of cue and response for learning. Similar to the first conventional method described above, the question of the perceived known or unknown items is presented to a user, the user constructs a response to the presented cue and then compares the constructed response to the correct response.
The prior art methods described above have generally proven to be only marginally effective for learning, retaining and retrieving knowledge and skills. The prior art methods often require a user to schedule and manage the learn, review and test processes which consequently consumes a portion of the cognitive workload of the
Lewis Andrew Smith
Van Schaack Andrew
Cerego, LLC
Harris Chanda L.
Hughes S. Thomas
Keating, Esq. Joseph R.
LandOfFree
System apparatus and method for maximizing effectiveness and... does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with System apparatus and method for maximizing effectiveness and..., we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and System apparatus and method for maximizing effectiveness and... will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-3128111