The Research behind "Spaced Repetition"

Perhaps you have used phase-6 for a number of years, perhaps just for a couple of months. Needless to say, if you have practiced regularly, you have already seen the positive effects of spaced repetition. While phase-6 is "just" a flashcard tool that relies on repetition, we frequently get great feedback from parents and students who find that using phase-6 triggers their intrinsic motivation in ways they hat not anticiapted.

While we can talk and praise spaced repetition all day long by telling you about success stories and our own intuition, we also want to back up our claims with some more credible research. Dr. Thalheimer’s review of the research landscape indicates clearly that spacing learning over time produces substantial learning benefits and that spaced-repetition effect are particularly noteworthy given the enormous research literature supporting their use.

But don't take my word for it! See for yourself: http://www.phase-6.com/opencms/system/galleries/download/lernsoftware/Spacing_Learning_Over_Time__March2009v1_.pdf

Long time no hear

Yes, it has been a long time since our last post. But, we are still here, and we are here to stay.

As I am writing this, I have relocated from Chicago to beautiful Switzerland, the home of our mother ship. phase-6 has a renewed focus on the German schooling market and will serve international markets through its U.S. website (www.phase-6.com).

phase-6 has had a great year 2009 and successfully introduced the "school version" phase-6 Basic in German schools. More and more students as well as teachers realize that phase-6 is much more than just a vocabulary tool, more than just a flashcard software.

Customers continuously ask for content areas that we had never thought of. While offering some high quality publisher content in psychology, the furthest that phase-6 has ventured out of its traditional foreign language market, has been to math contents / terminology. We are excited about new opportunities that we'll be able to announce shortly.

Speaking of content: we have recently added a large number of content modules specifically designed for adult learners. Hueber Verlag (www.hueber.de) is a strong partner, particularly in the area of German as a Second Language. So come and check it out.

To make sure that phase-6 keeps growing beyond people's expectations (of a flashcard tool), we are working on a number of innovations. So stay tuned and come back regularly.

The “i-tunes of education” concept for content partnerships: teaming up with textbook publishers to provide users with quality content

Many of you are using phase-6 to custom-create your own digital flashcards / question-answer pairs.
A pretty recent development that was actually spurred by our German users is the online content shop where ready-made flashcard sets (aka “content modules”) can be downloaded that match frequently used textbooks. Because students, parents and educators had contacted publishers, it was actually publishers themselves that approached us to inquire about ways we could team up and offer their content in our tool. The “i-tunes of education” concept was born - phase-6 being the engine/delivery platform for high quality educational content that previously was mainly available in print.
Check out the “publisher carousel” on our German homepage for existing partnerships in the European market. As of June 2009, we’ve got the following ones on board: Diesterweg Verlag, Klett Verlag, Cornelsen Verlag, Langenscheid Verlag, Springer Verlag, C.C.Buchner Verlag, Mentor Verlag, and Martin’s Little Helper.
My co-workers in Switzerland and Germany just let me know that they are in touch with further publishers that intend to join forces with us as well, so it’s worth checking back for up-to-date information.

Much more recently we’ve also been entering into conversations with U.S. publishers.
Are you or is someone you care about in Middle School and interested in boosting vocabulary knowledge? If so, how about taking a look at the new digital flashcard sets for Evan-Moor's Grade 5 and 6+ textbooks "Daily Academic Vocabulary" and "A Word A Day"?

Check them out and let us know what you think via email to feedback@phase-6.com. We're looking forward to hearing your opinion!

What do teachers say about phase-6?

"My name is Adam Harris and I have utilized phase-6 in my levels 1, 2, and 3 Spanish classes at Elk Grove High School and Pleasant Grove High School for the past 4 years. (These are both public schools in Sacramento County, CA.). I actually met Daniel Gorin while he was attending Elk Grove High as a foreign exchange student a decade ago. When he returned to introduce this program, phase-6, I wanted to try it out and see what it could do to improve retention of vocabulary and more for my students -- and potentially the rest of the students in our district. For the past 4 years, I have seen phase-6 evolve and have seen my students benefit from what it offers. The teachers in my department that teach Spanish and I have had our students use the program on a weekly basis as part of their homework and have seen the test scores improve overall after discussing previous years of test scores. More specifically, the test scores have improved in the vocabulary portions of tests and oral presentations.
I like also the fact that students are prompted to recall and study vocabulary and verbs from past chapters. There was little chance of getting to do so otherwise in a programmed fashion, so I am hooked on having my students use phase-6 for essential practice.
Overall, I believe that this program improves retention of vocabulary and want to continue using the program for years to come."

Adam Harris

So what’s the deal with the student who supposedly invented phase-6?

Yep, it’s actually true! At the time (in 2002, so you do the math ;) Daniel Gorin was a 19-year-old motivated freshman in college. From what he’s told me, he was writing important information that he wanted to really lock into his memory on paper flashcards/index cards and was trying to follow a proven pattern of spaced repetition to make his studying endeavors as efficient as possible (Daniel and efficiency are two words I’ve come to closely associate over the last few years).

Now you can probably imagine how frustrated he got when the driver of a bus he was taking stepped on the gas, causing him to drop the stack of flashcards on the muddy floor. That really got him thinking something along the lines of: “There’s got to be a better system! One where I would never lose a card or lose track of when I studied it last – one that would automatically organize them and just let me know when they’re due for practice - a system that would ensure that I firmly lock relevant information into my long-term memory. ” So he went online and searched the internet for a software that would do exactly that and was very surprised that he could not find one at the time.

This is probably where most of us fellow humans, including myself, would give up or decide to wait until someone else does something about the problem. But for those of you who know him, that is NOT Daniel. Instead, he just went ahead and programmed a software himself that would help him study effectively.

And this is where the story could have ended, had not some of his former high school teachers in Germany heard about it and asked him to burn it to a CD, so their students could use the software to study English as a foreign language vocabulary. Needless to say, not only these teachers and their students at this particular high school liked the software. Parents started spreading the word as well. Not surprisingly, the first “sales reps” were actually moms who were so thrilled about the fact that their kids were improving their grades and were self-motivated to study with phase-6, that they wanted to make sure other parents knew about the program as well.

And that was just the beginning of what is now phase-6. Today, Daniel is no longer running the company on the side and by himself but we’re still a pretty small, young team (we like to think of it as “dynamic” ;). Yet, in Germany alone, there are now several thousand high schools that recommend the use of phase-6 and nearly half a million licenses have been sold as of May 2009. Even companies have come on board as customers because - as we all know - it’s an illusion to think that we’re through with learning once we’ve graduated with a degree and are out in the working world, right?

And who said we all had to be or stay in Germany?? Our “global” headquarters (and most of my colleagues) are currently in Basel, Switzerland and the blog you’re reading is part of our endeavor to explore North America and the English speaking world in general, aka you :).

What's this thing called phase-6?

We’ve discovered that it’s not as easy as it seems to accurately describe phase-6 to people who have never used the program before, even though "keeping it simple" is one of our mantras and it’s really easy to understand once you’ve used it… but I’ll give it a shot nonetheless:

Highly versatile, digital flashcard software that helps you and me memorize vocabulary, terminology and fact-based knowledge in a large variety of subject areas.

Okay, that’s the short version, so maybe I’ll elaborate a little more for those of you who really want to know:

If you desire to boost your learning at school, in higher education, professional trainings or certifications, or just for fun, we're glad you've found us! phase-6 allows you to experience easy victories by helping you lock vocabulary, facts and definitions into long-term memory.

At the heart of phase-6 lies its research-based, intelligent methodology of repetition that adapts to your personal strengths and weaknesses. Flashcards are automatically prioritized, making each practice session as time-efficient and effective as possible.

phase-6 is an extremely versatile vocabulary practice tool. You can custom-create your own electronic flashcards, with the option of formatting the text, and adding audio recordings or video clips. Alternatively, you can import publisher content modules based on textbooks or complimentary flashcard sets from our homepage.

Developed by a 19-year-old student in 2002, today almost half a million learners consider phase-6 the product of their choice to meet any type of memorization need.

Hope this helps!

But then again, I don't think there’s really any substitute for just plain seeing for yourself whether you like phase-6. If you want to check it out, you can get the 20-day-free-trial version from our website by clicking on "free demo download" on the left-hand side of our homepage: www.phase-6.com

We do really want to know what you think, so you're more than welcome to shoot us an email to feedback@phase-6.com.