Study4Boards is a Board Review App to help graduate medical trainees prepare for Board examinations. The app itself is free to download, but offers individual subjects as an in-app purchase.
Currently the subject being offered is Anesthesiology and we anticipate to quickly expand to Critical Care Medicine and other perioperative specialities in the next few months.
Program User Modes
BROWSE mode:
This mode offers the learner a way of just flipping through the volume of cards in the program. The Contents tab in the Browse mode offer a quick look into the different topics and number of cards in each of those topics. One can choose directly from the list as well.
The cards in Browse mode are not connected to the learning algorithm.
STUDY mode:
The more involved Study mode tracks individual topics and cards and presents content based on the individuals rating of the materials presented on the card. This is based on the spaced repetition algorithm. The study mode enables the learner to rate the cards based on how well they know the material, the program then remembers the sequence and automatically assigns a frequency that the cards need to be presented to the user over time to best memorize content. This is your most valuable mode to use the program to learn the material.
SEARCH Mode:
Search: allows search functions within the entire dataset for the particular subject.
SETTING Mode:
Setting Mode: offers the option of signing out of the app completely.
STUDY MODE:
First Time Users
• Day 1: The program presents a random list of 10 slides the first time
the learner uses the study mode. After reviewing the slides for the first time -you are not required to make a choice of how well you know the material. This is because you are seeing this material in the program for the very first time.
• Day 2: The next day, always starts by reviewing previously viewed slides. But this time you rate how well you know the presented material. E.g., let us assume you choose the “barely know” rating on “Methemoglobenemia”. The program remembers the rating and presents the card again subsequent on predetermined days based on the algorithm, say day 10.
• The higher you rate the material; longer is the time interval to see the card again in the deck. This is the essence of Spaced repetition.
Happy Studying !