Overview

Reports identify suboptimal training patterns that your students engage in. You can easily get the supporting data needed to proactively address issues that arise from these behaviors. When you create your report, you select the suboptimal training behaviors that you'd like to be alerted to. These behaviors include when students have too many wrong answers, when they are are inactive during their training, when they don't spend enough time on review, when they skip too many words, and when they complete training sessions that are too short or too long. You can edit your report at any time to adjust the alerts you receive. This article will explain how to identify and address suboptimal training patterns to help your students get the most out Membean. 

Checking for Alerts

From your class report, click on data under the Alerts column.

You will see breakdown of any training session where the student received an alert. Click on the day to see more details on the Session Inspector. 

Accuracy Alerts

You'll be alerted if a student's accuracy is less than 50%. When a student's accuracy drops below 30%, those minutes are marked as dubious. 

Whenever you see an Accuracy Alert, it's a good idea to check out the student's review pace. Often, students who have low accuracy are not reviewing Word Pages effectively. If the student is rushing through their review, they may need some guidance on how to approach restudying a word.

Sometimes students have low accuracy and very long review times. In this case, check the Inactivity section of the training details. If the student has inactive zones, talk to them about their training to make a plan to limit distractions and help them focus. If the student does not have inactivity, help them with Word Page review strategies; spending too much time on review can contribute to low accuracy because the student answers fewer questions per training session.

Our Training Tips resource discusses strategies to help students with review.

If the student continues to struggle, you may want to look into student training preferences such as Strong Memory Mode. Read more here about using accuracy to help your students. If you think the student's word are too challenging, reach out to support@membean.com for recommendations.

Inactivity Alerts

An inactive zone is one in which there was no clicking or scrolling on a page for at least two minutes. If a student has more than three inactive zones, their session is flagged as dubious. When there is no activity on a page for this long, it typically means the student is distracted.

There are many reasons a student may get distracted during training. The student may be attempting to multi-task or getting distracted by their environment. If a student has attention differences, they may be struggling to focus. Inactivity may be unintentional or intentional. If students are intentionally using inactivity to circumvent training, this behavior can spread quickly. Whether intentional or not, it's important to address this behavior as soon as possible. Students aren't learning when they are inactive. 

To address inactivity, the first step is to help the student identify the cause of inactivity and come up with a plan to address it. Here are some ideas: 

  • Avoid multi-tasking and limit distractions. Is the student trying to complete their Spanish homework at the same time as their Membean training? Are they training during band practice or while they are helping their sibling with their homework? Is Netflix on in the background? Help the student come up for a plan for where and when they can focus on training.
  • Chunk training into 5-10 minute sessions. Sometimes students struggle to stay focused, and taking a break for a couple minutes in the middle of training can help. Have the student try training for 5-10 minutes and then taking a break before resuming training. If you have the student try this strategy, monitor the activity section of their training details to make sure it's helping them focus. 
  • Provide review guidance. If students think they need to study everything on the page every time they see it, they may be more easily distracted than if they study 2-3 memlets and then move on. 

After making a plan with the student, monitor their progress. Check the activity section of the training details even if they aren't flagged for dubious minutes to make sure they are truly engaged the entire time. 

When a student spends 6 or more minutes on a Word Page, the trainer will close due to inactivity. This inactivity does not appear in this section because that time is not recorded as part of the training session. If a student does not have a graceful exit stamp in their activity log, it means their session was closed due to inactivity. 

Review Pace Alerts

When students answer a question incorrectly during training, they are immediately presented with the word page. Under Review Pace, you'll see exactly how long they spent restudying each word they got wrong during the session. You'll receive a Review Pace Alert if students are spending a median of fewer than 10 seconds restudying their words. We recommend that a student spend at minimum of 10 seconds reviewing a word page, but you'll find that students often spend far less than this. Students with low accuracy often also get the Review Pace Alert. 

If a student is getting the Review Pace Alert, especially if they are also struggling with accuracy, provide guidance on how to approach Word Pages. These Training Tips will help.

Skipped Words Alerts

If a student is using the IKT button to skip words they know well, it's a good thing! However, some students overuse the IKT button. They may be overly confident about how well they know a word, they may be overwhelmed by the difficulty of a word, or they may have figured out that they can temporarily inflate their accuracy by IKTing a lot of words. Whatever the reason, overusing the IKT button can quickly backfire.

When a student performs poorly on tests or is progressing very rapidly through the program, you'll often find that skipping words is the culprit. The IKT Use Alert will notify you if the student is skipping a lot of words. You can review which words the student skipped under the IKT Use section of their Session Inspector. Students can unskip words that they don't actually know. If the student continues to skip words they don't know, turn off their IKT button. If you discover that the student has been abusing IKT for a while, reach out to support@membean.com for recommendations. 

Session Length Alerts

Session lengths between 10-25 minutes are optimal for long term retention. You'll see a Session Length Alert if a student's training session is fewer than 5 or more than 45 minutes. We encourage your grading guidelines to clearly specify that students should not train more than 30 minutes in a single day. For example, if your goal is 45 minutes for a week, require students to complete it over multiple days and preferably for 15 minutes at a time. When students complete all their training in a single day, they don't benefit from the spacing effect and they'll spend a higher percentage of training time fatigued. 

We recommend using the Goal Progress column of your report to give partial credit to students who reach the time goal but not the days per week or session length goals reducing grades. If long sessions are done within 24 hours of the deadline, you may choose to further reduce the grade to prevent cramming. 

Students like to know why they are being required to meet specific training expectations. Explain to students that very long or very short sessions are detrimental to learning and retention. We go over it in our Training Tips resource. You can also learn more about our training recommendations here.