9 ms·

Yeah med students seem to be unique in the amount of stuff they need to remember, at least in terms of users Ive worked with. The amount of things medical stude

by dsgnr 3y ago

Yeah med students seem to be unique in the amount of stuff they need to remember, at least in terms of users Ive worked with. The amount of things medical students need to memorize to pass their USMLE exams is insane. I designed and built a learning tool at a startup for med students using picture mnenomics and spaced repetition quizzing that seriously helped those students and lead to the startup being acquired.

AlexErrant 3y ago
The ability to link image-metaphors/mnemonics to concepts is something that really should spread to other (non-medical) domains. An example of a picture mnemonic for others: https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2023/04/story-3308-768x432.jpg https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/202... Article: https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/usc-dornsife-alumnus-revolutionizing-medical-school/ https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/usc-dornsife-alumnus-r... If you're comfortable saying, did your startup/acquirer have any interest in developing products for other domains?
- Avicebron 3y ago
  I'm not the one you're asking, but I surprised you don't think that mnemonic isn't used in other domains. It typically doesn't look like a fully fleshed out pizza shop, but I distinctly remember explaining an cell scaffold that I had synthesized like a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs to some of the undergraduates I was mentoring.. I never felt that other domains didn't address the natural inclination to use abstraction as a way to convey concepts/processes.
  - AlexErrant 3y ago
    To be clearer, I'm talking about explicit integrative pictures like the one I linked. I know simple ones like this exist https://www.build-electronic-circuits.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Ohms-law-cartoon-cropped.jpg https://www.build-electronic-circuits.com/wp-content/uploads... but I'm _surprised_ that complex metaphorical images like the one in the parent haven't spread to other domains. As you said, we often make verbal metaphors when teaching, but explicit visual metaphors are _relatively_ rare. I'm talking about literal political cartoon as mnemonic device. How often do you see visual metaphors in textbooks? They're usually more interested in correctness. Perhaps AI will make generating these images easier, if the difficulty in creating the graphics was the sticking point. Or maybe the problem is in sharing them, which is a problem that I'm working on.

by dsgnr 3y ago

AlexErrant 3y ago

The ability to link image-metaphors/mnemonics to concepts is something that really should spread to other (non-medical) domains. An example of a picture mnemonic for others: https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2023/04/story-3308-768x432.jpg https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/202... Article: https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/usc-dornsife-alumnus-revolutionizing-medical-school/ https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/usc-dornsife-alumnus-r... If you're comfortable saying, did your startup/acquirer have any interest in developing products for other domains?

Avicebron 3y ago
I'm not the one you're asking, but I surprised you don't think that mnemonic isn't used in other domains. It typically doesn't look like a fully fleshed out pizza shop, but I distinctly remember explaining an cell scaffold that I had synthesized like a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs to some of the undergraduates I was mentoring.. I never felt that other domains didn't address the natural inclination to use abstraction as a way to convey concepts/processes.
- AlexErrant 3y ago
  To be clearer, I'm talking about explicit integrative pictures like the one I linked. I know simple ones like this exist https://www.build-electronic-circuits.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Ohms-law-cartoon-cropped.jpg https://www.build-electronic-circuits.com/wp-content/uploads... but I'm _surprised_ that complex metaphorical images like the one in the parent haven't spread to other domains. As you said, we often make verbal metaphors when teaching, but explicit visual metaphors are _relatively_ rare. I'm talking about literal political cartoon as mnemonic device. How often do you see visual metaphors in textbooks? They're usually more interested in correctness. Perhaps AI will make generating these images easier, if the difficulty in creating the graphics was the sticking point. Or maybe the problem is in sharing them, which is a problem that I'm working on.