The FunnelBrain Blog » Study Groups

Create A Study Group on FunnelBrain

Joe DeTuno — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 00:23:56 +0000

Create study teams and invite your classmates and friends from Facebook! Add Flashcards, Quizzes and Photos and have real-time discussions in the message forum.

Teams are designed to help you work together with other students in your class or on another continent.

Click below to set up your study group today or click here to check out some groups…

FunnelBrain is an academic social learning web site that provides an environment for collaborative online learning and free flashcards and quizzes built entirely by users.

Similar to Wikipedia, the FunnelBrain platform is entirely user-driven. Anyone can contribute by making or editing free online flashcards and quizzes, as well as adding rich content such as photos, videos, audio voice recordings and math equations. Students work in teams to create free flashcards, paired with video explanations, for their class and leverage a learning management application known as the “Funnel” that tracks and monitors learning progress a with a spaced repetition algorithm.

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FunnelBrain Newsletter October 7

Joe DeTuno — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 22:13:44 +0000

Premium Flashcards ON SALE!

Premium Cram Cards powered by DemiDec for only $3.95 per month! Limited time offer. Order now!

Master the SAT and your choice of AP Chemistry, Biology, Psychology, History, Economics, Spanish, or English. Sort cards by difficulty, area of the curriculum, and category – People, Places, Events, and more – for a custom learning experience.

Premium Cram Cards by DemiDec offer students a great way to study structured review materials in FunnelBrain’s online environment. Click to learn more…

Teacher Tips Week 2: Study Teams on FunnelBrain
Previously, we covered the benefits of study team s and some of the mechanics of setting them up. Now I want to talk about how to maximize the success of your study teams by using FunnelBrain.

As you’ll see, study team projects on FunnelBrain can really kindle your students’ enthusiasm. They’ll be learning and having fun doing it. Click to read more…

Flashcard Set of the Week: NBA Champions 18 Days Till Tip Off!
It’s only 18 days till tip off of the NBA season. Test your NBA History knowledge…

True or False: Boston Celtic won the 1955 NBA Championship? Click for the answer and to test your NBA History knowledge!

Win an Apple iPod!
The Apple iPod contest is heating up! Its not to late to win. Simply set-up a Study Team (or Teams) on FunnelBrain and invite your classmates to join. Its fast, easy, and FREE! Click Here To Win!

Are you a Civil War buff?
Take our Free FunnelBrain Civil War Quiz and see how you rank against other FunnelBrainers!

It’s Fast, Informative, and FUN! Click to take the challenge.

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Teaching Tips: How to Form Study Teams

Jack — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:43:32 +0000

In a recent post, I discussed the benefits of study teams. In this post, I will offer a few tips on how to form study teams. Before moving on to that topic, though, I want to share one more reason students should form study teams. A long running study at Harvard University by Dr. Richard J. Light, Professor of Education, found that participation in study groups was one of the best predictors of success in college. So students who learn how to make good use of study teams in high school will have a leg up on college. You can read more about Dr. Light’s study here: Harvard Education Study

Now, let me cover some of the basics of forming study teams.

How large should a study team be?

The ideal size for a study team is probably 4 or 5 students. The teams should be large enough to have a diversity of skills, viewpoints, and learning styles, but not so large that just keeping the group organized becomes an administrative burden for its members. A team should have at least 3 members at a minimum and no more than 6 at a maximum.

How do you select the members of a study team?

There are three basic strategies: let the students pick their own teammates; hand select the teams yourself; or assign members randomly (such as by drawing names out of a hat). Allowing students to pick their own teammates may have the benefit of making students happier about their teammates. However, since students will inevitably choose their friends, the drawbacks are that teams will tend to lack diversity and that teams may socialize more than they work. Hand selecting can work if you already know your students well enough to compose teams with diverse skill sets. However, if you’re forming teams early in the school year (which is a good idea), this may not be possible. The random approach has the benefit of simplicity and fairness.

How long do study teams stay together?

The teams should stay together at least for the full semester. You may want to shuffle team members for the next semester, or, if things are working smoothly, keep the teams stable for the entire school year.

When do study teams meet?

Study teams should meet regularly outside of class. Teams should meet once a week. Ambitious teams may choose to meet more frequently. Ideally, you should also schedule some time for students to work in their study teams during class, again, at least once a week.

How do study teams work?

Study teams meet at least once a week outside of class to review and discuss course materials and assignments. In Tool for Teaching, Barbara Gross Davis discusses three basic study team models. In one model, all team members read all the assignments, but each member specializes in one particular area and shares his or her expertise with the team. In another model, the team activities vary from week to week, reviewing a reading assignment one week, reviewing a completed test the next, and so forth. In the last model, a set of study questions serves as the agenda for each meeting.

I prefer the last model mentioned, particularly for high school students. Davis is addressing college instructors and discussing how study teams function at the college level. At the high school level, I think more structure and guidance from the teacher is necessary. A set of study questions, either provided by the teacher or created by the students themselves as an assignment from the teacher, is a simple way to provide the structure needed. In my next post, I’ll discuss how to accomplish this using FunnelBrain.

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FunnelBrain Newsletter: Back To School Contest!

Joe DeTuno — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:14:57 +0000

Welcome Back!

FunnelBrain wants to welcome you back for the 2009-10 school year! To kick things off, we are introducing a new contest so you can win cool stuff!

It’s really easy to participate. Simply set-up a study team (or teams) on FunnelBrain and invite your classmates to join! Its fast, easy, and FREE! Please click below to learn more and get started!

It’s Not About Flashcards

Many people have told us they think FunnelBrain is the best flashcard site on the Internet. Of course, we are gratified by this, but for those who look at FunnelBrain and see only a flashcard site, I have a surprise: FunnelBrain is not really about flashcards. So what is it?

Video Publishing on FunnelBrain

Flashcard authors can now capture video directly into FunnelBrain from a connected web cam when creating questions, answers, explanations and mnemonic devices. Read more…

Other Product Updates

The FunnelBrain team has been hard at work and we’d like to tell you about some exciting enhancements to the FunnelBrain service. Keep checking back though…we’ve got lots more coming soon! Read more…

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Teaching Tips: The Power of Study Teams

Jack — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 18:22:59 +0000

We know that students learn best when they take an active role in the learning process. This is not only common sense, it is a fundamental principle of teaching supported by ample research (see, for example, Tools for Teaching, by Barbara Gross Davis. In this post I’m going to discuss one of the best techniques for getting students actively involved: study teams.

Study teams are a form of “collaborative learning.” Teachers include collaborative learning or group learning in their teaching strategies because students working in small groups learn the material more deeply, retain more of what they learn, and generally have more fun learning.

A study team is a small group of students that work together to master the subject matter over a relatively long term, such as over an entire semester or even an entire school year. Study teams are one of three basic types of group learning that Davis describes. The other two types are:

informal learning groups, which are ad hoc groups formed in class to work on a brief task, such as solving a problem; and

formal learning groups, which are teams created to complete a specific group assignment such as group research paper or lab experiment.

All three types have their place, and you will probably use all three at different times. However, a study team has some unique benefits that I want to highlight.

The unique benefits of study teams stem from their long-term stability. These include:

Motivation – on a good team, members become dependent on each other, so the desire not to let teammates down becomes a big motivator;

Support System – the team becomes a support system for its members, as members turn to each other for help and encouragement;

Shared Learning Styles – members will bring different learning styles to the team, thus students benefit from exposure to new styles;

Peer teaching – on a good team, every member becomes a teacher to the other members, and students learn best by teaching other students;

Getting more done – by sharing the effort, study team members can cover more ground and have an easier time keeping pace with the class.

In upcoming posts, I’ll talk about how to form study teams and how to maximize their effectiveness by using FunnelBrain.

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It’s Not About the Flashcards

Jack — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 19:45:45 +0000

So What Is It?

“Flashcard” is actually just a metaphor. FunnelBrain is really about creating student engagement through online collaboration. Read on to learn why we focus on collaboration and why we use the flashcard metaphor.

First, why on online collaboration? We want to get students excited about learning, and we know that:

Learning is more fun and effective when it is social.
Students engage on a deeper level with an audience of fellow students, rather than the teacher.
Online collaboration with all the latest web 2.0 tools makes it cool to be smart.
A shot at online stardom is a great motivator.

So how do you make online collaboration work? We spent a lot of time studying the essential elements of successful online collaborations. The key elements boil down to these:

First, you need a well-defined project for your collaborators to join. The participants must all understand the expected output of their collective efforts.
Second, you need a group of people with some inherent motivation to contribute to your project.
Third, the barrier to participation must be small. For this, you need a project that is highly “granular,” so that it is easy for participants to jump in and make small contributions to the project.
Lastly, you need an automated way to assemble all the granular contributions into a cohesive whole.

So, we designed FunnelBrain as a student collaboration project around these essential elements:

The Project

Create a collection of online flashcards decks with all the questions you need to know for your class.Of course, these are not literally flashcards. They are actually multi-media presentations of academic questions, answers and explanations.The flashcard metaphor simply allows the participants to instantly understand the project.The question, answer and explanation format gives the project just enough structure for the many participants’ contributions to hang together, while still leaving broad latitude for student expression and creativity.

The Participants

All the students in your class, along with all the students in similar classes around the world. Their motivations will range from the obvious value of the finished project at exam review time to the thrill of seeing themselves and their work published online.

The Granularity

Individual contributions can be as large as complete sets of flashcards on a particular subject, or as small as a correction, comment or tag on a single flashcard.

The Cohesive Whole

Flashcard decks can automatically sorted and assembled into subject area collections based on the tags users assign them (and by the site’s search index).

Students are already having a great deal of fun with this project. Of course, words only go so far. To get a better sense of the project’s potential, take a look at these “video flashcards”:

Click here to view a video flashcard deck created by the AP Environmental Science students at Saint Mary’s Hall in San Antonio.

Click here to view a video flashcard deck created by the AP Biology class at Lee High School in Houston.

Okay, now how do YOU get started? Easy. Click here to set up a group for your own class.

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FunnelBrain Public Beta

Joe DeTuno — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 17:50:58 +0000

Thanks for your continued support and feedback during our Alpha test period. Over the last couple months, we’ve been hard at work on new features for creating study materials and improving social collaborative learning. This week, we introduced several updates based on your feedback including the ability to insert special characters into your flashcards, add your friends to your personal profile, invite your friends from Facebook, Myspace and LinkedIn to your study group, reset your learning FUNNEL using the spaced repetition algorithm, add explanations and mnemonic devices to all your view materials using video, audio, images and text. Oh, and we also fixed many of the bugs and other issues that were reported.

You can use all the site features listed below by going to FunnelBrain.com. You can also browse study materials by category here. Hope to see you on the site soon!

Flashcard Question and Answer Creation
Wiki-style content creation tools allow you to create review questions using a rich text editor, embed photos, videos, add audio voice-over, special characters and math equations

Explanations and Mnemonics
Include an explanation and/or mnemonic device for all your review materials using videos, images and text

Study Groups
Create groups and invite friends, add photos, and have real-time discussions. The invitation feature even allows you to invite friends from your favorite social network including Facebook and MySpace

Profiles and Friends
Add a profile photo. Add your fiends and classmates. Include information such as your favorite class, the school you attend and groups you have joined. Your profile is auto updated with study materials you save, create and review on FunnelBrain

The FUNNEL
The FUNNEL is a learning application that manages your study process to make it efficient and effective using a spaced repetition algorithm that presents the right question at the right time

Discussion Boards, Ratings & Tagging
Discuss and comment on any question, answer or group topic in real-time. You may also rate and tag content to make it easier to find and share in the community

Video Gallery for Flashcards and Explanations
Upload unlimited number videos to FunnelBrain for questions, answers, explanations and mnemonics

Find Study Materials
Dynamically search throughout the entire site for any flashcard set, question, answer, class, comment or classmate

Flaschards and Study Groups on FunnelBrain

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Collaborate on FunnelBrain and create Study Groups and Flashcards

Jack — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 21:05:15 +0000

One of the great reasons to use FunnelBrain is that it gives you the ability to collaborate online with your fellow students. What do I mean by “collaborate”? Well, “collaborate” simply means “to work together.” On FunnelBrain, you can work together with your fellow students to create sets of review questions and answers for all of your classes. In this post, I will discuss in some detail how to do this. To make the discussion as concrete as possible, I will imagine that I am a student in a high school AP or Advanced Placement class (AP and Advanced Placement are trademarks of The College Board).

For those of you who are not familiar with AP courses, let me digress a moment to explain. AP or Advanced Placement courses are high school courses in which students do college level work. In order for a course to be called an “AP” or “Advanced Placement” course, the course must meet rigorous requirements established by the College Board. The College Board’s AP Program current includes 37 courses in 20 subject areas. Popular AP subjects include: World History, European History, U.S. History, Psychology, Biology, Chemistry, Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, Physics, Calculus, English Language, English Literature, and many others. A complete list, along with detailed course descriptions, can be found at the College Board website.

Now, let me return to the subject of online student collaboration on FunnelBrain. Suppose that I am a student in a high school AP Physics class. I want to get my AP Physics classmates to join me in creating a comprehensive set of AP Physics flashcards on FunnelBrain that will help us all prepare for the AP Physics examinations (there are actually three AP Physics courses, called AP Physics B, AP Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism, and AP Physics C: Mechanics, but for my purposes I’m combining them into one topic).

One of the keys to successful collaboration on FunnelBrain is making sure that the purpose of the collaboration is clear. In other words, I want it to be clear to my fellow students exactly what we are working together to create. Now, how do I do that on FunnelBrain?

My first step is to create an AP Physics group on FunnelBrain.

FunnelBrain AP Physics Group

Once I am logged-in to FunnelBrain, from the FunnelBrain homepage I click on “Create” and then on “Create a Group.” This takes me to a page where I can easily create a group. I can give the group a title, a description and even a photo to let other users quickly see what the group is about. To illustrate, I have already created an AP Physics group, and I have given it the following description:

“This group will create a comprehensive set of review questions for AP Physics (including Physics B and Physics C). One deck will be created for each major topic area typically covered in AP Physics courses. This group is for all students and teachers of AP Physics courses. (AP and Advanced Placement are trademarks of The College Board).”

This description will make it clear to anyone joining the group what this group hopes to accomplish. I’ve also added a nice photo of Einstein so anyone can tell at a glance that this is a physics group.

FunnelBrain Create Flash Cards

If I want to make things really clear, I can set up some or all of the decks I want the group to create. To create a deck, from the FunnelBrain homepage, just click “Create” and you are taken directly to the Create Deck screen. You can give each deck you create a title, a subject (optional), and a “purpose.” The “purpose” is also optional, but it is a good idea to fill it in. In the purpose field, you can write a short paragraph summarizing the topic you want the deck to cover. Be sure to add each deck you create to your group – this is a separate step you must take after you create the deck. Now, the decks you’ve created can serve as a kind of subject outline for the group’s members. To see an example of this, check out my AP Physics group. You’ll see I’ve created 19 decks, one for each of the major subject areas of a typical AP Physics class.

My last step, of course, is to invite my classmates to go to www.funnelbrain.com and join my group.

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