I've found that one of the best ways to learn is to combine spaced repetition with shorter, yet higher-frequency study sessions (think two daily 30-minute blocks, rather than one 1-hour block). This allows you to also take advantage of the primacy & recency effects.
Spaced Repetition
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Re: Spaced Repetition
#12I often feel like learning things with Anki puts memories into the wrong part of the brain. It happens way too often that I can perfectly recall something from Anki (on a PC or phone), but have a lot of trouble recalling it 'in action'.
Interesting - have you had any thoughts as to how to improve this? Eg, to get the items into the correct part of your brain?
Re: Spaced Repetition
#13With how often I've seen spaced repetition mentioned online recently, I'm starting to assume there's a grand conspiracy that's trying to use spaced repetition to trick me into remembering about spaced repetition.
If you forgot about it recently and it's coming up a great deal now, then I think the Illuminati have competition.
Re: Spaced Repetition
#14I wish anki supports better import-from-text-files, i.e. I can write the cards in a text editor(e.g. vim), then import it to anki easily with syntax highlighting etc just works, I failed to find one does that, use anki's own interface to input a large amount of info is difficult for me. it will be nice if anki has a pre-defined format/template so we can edit(add/delete/change) the cards using better editors.
Re: Spaced Repetition
#15I often feel like learning things with Anki puts memories into the wrong part of the brain. It happens way too often that I can perfectly recall something from Anki (on a PC or phone), but have a lot of trouble recalling it 'in action'.
Interesting - have you had any thoughts as to how to improve this? Eg, to get the items into the correct part of your brain?
The age old technique of learning while walking around somewhere - then you can recall your memories by imagining where you were on that walk.
(I think it's called Memory Palace.)
Re: Spaced Repetition
#16I've found that one of the best ways to learn is to combine spaced repetition with shorter, yet higher-frequency study sessions (think two daily 30-minute blocks, rather than one 1-hour block). This allows you to also take advantage of the primacy & recency effects.
Wow, that's a lot of flashcard time.
According to Anki, I'm averaging 10 minutes a day on my language vocabulary deck. It does happen in a series of short, 1-2 minute bursts when I'm sitting on the toilet or whatever.
To that end, another useful thing I've discovered: Reviewing flashcards (and, spaced repetition) is not a good way to learn. It's a good way to reinforce your memory of things you've already learned. The real learning happens when you make the flashcards. The time spent focused on each concept so that you can decide how to break it into a series of smaller factoids that are right-sized for a flashcard, and coming up with whatever mnemonic devices you'll be using to help you remember this concept, is where the learning happens, because that whole process involves a fair amount of turning it over in your head.
Meaning you really shouldn't ever use a pre-made deck. It may not seem like it at first, but it really is normally more efficient to make your own from scratch.
Re: Spaced Repetition
#17Recommend using Anki for this: https://apps.ankiweb.net/ I try to add new words/concepts/things etc. I learn into Anki. IMO, it greatly helps me with memorising various and more obscure terms, that I used to always forget.
Could be difficult to put in lot of latex or even diagrams. We need something which can auto-generate the notes for us.
I'm actually working on a knowledge base / memory retention application. I'm not yet sure what I'll do for the "best UX", as I want to avoid UI work (not my area), so I expect I'll export to something like Mochi[1] or Anki.
Can you describe your format and processing a bit more? I'd like to have some understanding for potential future use cases. Eg, what are the sources (format/etc), and how would you envision them generating the Anki cards from them? Does your source currently have enough data to generate cards from? Or would someone need to go through and separate larger documents into Anki cards?
Appreciate any detail you can give :)
[1]: https://mochi.cards
Re: Spaced Repetition
#18With how often I've seen spaced repetition mentioned online recently, I'm starting to assume there's a grand conspiracy that's trying to use spaced repetition to trick me into remembering about spaced repetition.
[Warning: attempt at taking joke seriously]
Surely if this were so, it would mean you'd see fewer mentions of spaced repetition over time, rather than more? (assuming your comment implies having seen more than usual recently)
Re: Spaced Repetition
#19Seems like spaced repetition works great for language learning and remembering new terms. I wonder how it could help to get better as a programmer. Any tips?
Re: Spaced Repetition
#20I have noticed in myself, that it helps a lot with things which are conducive to route learning - that is, it is either something which has no innate meaning, like a random sequence, or something I understand, such as a table of values. But it helps very little (not surprisingly) when I need to learn a concept and a model. I thought maybe I can learn the model faster, if I have all the terms and their definitions dow…
I find it less useful for learning complex things, but more useful for retaining them. So I learn something, but then I make cards for key points so that I'll be able to remember the whole thing later. Otherwise I find that after a while I don't always recall the whole concept.
Yea, in my (limited) experience Spaced Repetition can bring larger items into memory even if the card itself is not asking a big complex question. I think if you can phrase a question in such a way that to answer it you need to draw a larger model in your head you'll gain similar benefits to more traditional micro-spaced-repetition.
Eg, you could add cards to individually remember family members, or you could add a card to remember all of the family members of X household. The latter is more vague but I think still effectively pulls the dependencies (individual family members) into your mind.
This is speculation, so take it with a grain of salt.