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I'm confused, when they say a reminder, what do they mean? Also, when they used books as an example, do they mean read the same thing 2 days later? It would be great if someone could provide an example to an old dummy like me.
What the heck am I supposed to take away from this?
This is a half ass theory, not evidence.
Where's a shred of evidence, on the time scales here, these "units of information" are retained (under either method). Are they even relevant compared to a _skill_ like reading that enables quicker information ingestion across an entire life o and is applicable across a wider range of problems than _individual information units you read_??
Anyone else feel like they just read a bunch of assumptions with no support followed by a chart "proving" an exponential equation grows faster than a linear one? What the heck am I supposed to take away from this? This is a half ass theory, not evidence. Where's a shred of evidence, on the time scales here, these "units of information" are retained (under either method). Are they even relevant compared to a _skill_ l…
The core concept that spaced repetition increases rapidly in effectiveness over time is called the Spacing Effect. There are many many studies that have investigated and proved it
I'm confused, when they say a reminder, what do they mean? Also, when they used books as an example, do they mean read the same thing 2 days later? It would be great if someone could provide an example to an old dummy like me.
They are referring to "spaced repetition", which is just a method to maximize long-term retention. If you are asked about a concept one day from now, and you successfully recall it, then you are reminded two days from now, and so on.
Spaced repetition turns reading into a physical activity with feedback. If you had an activity that required the knowledge you were hoping to acquire, you would learn at the same rate or faster by practice. Most lessons are encoded really poorly. I think spaced repetition is great, but practice at something is better. A hacker is just someone who has practiced learning independently and has become exceptionally good…
This is a good way to think about the subject. Still, education at a higher level like uni is often good to get a sound understanding of a subject (more so than optimizing for grades). Also learning a new (natural) language sometimes requires hammering words or gramatic rules into memory, and having a good teacher can be much faster than learning on your own by reading texts.
In general:
A priori knowledge only gets you to the starting line. Experience carries the rest. And you can only get that experience by doing yourself, not second hand.
Another method I have used in the past is to rewatch content I used to learn a subject at 3-4x speed. A lot of high quality content that spans multiple days can be viewed in only a few hours this way. The key I’ve learned with this is to do this across variations of the content you wish to learn and re-learn. Combine this with audio books at similar speeds and you can really get through content very quickly. When usi…
I'm glad this post looks at how we can get better at learning — it's an interesting area, and I think that meta "how does my brain work" is important to understand as part of the process. I did want to give some feedback, though. I think this post suffers from too much hand-waving, which is what plagues most other posts about learning and spaced repetition (excluding probably just Gwern). For example, it compares fla…
It only takes days for spaced repetition to get twice as effective, not reading. It takes you years to get twice as effective at reading.
> I think about other ways to build your understanding, like working through problems and applying the knowledge, that are key to learning. Much of learning physics is getting your hands dirty in the equations, and there's a big difference between knowing a formula and really understanding it in action.
I agree, you should definitely work through problems and apply your knowledge. The post is arguing that you should do that AND spend a little bit of time doing spaced repetition, not to only do spaced repetition and nothing else.
Anyone else feel like they just read a bunch of assumptions with no support followed by a chart "proving" an exponential equation grows faster than a linear one? What the heck am I supposed to take away from this? This is a half ass theory, not evidence. Where's a shred of evidence, on the time scales here, these "units of information" are retained (under either method). Are they even relevant compared to a _skill_ l…
What bit do you doubt? The core concept that spaced repetition increases rapidly in effectiveness over time is called the Spacing Effect. There are many many studies that have investigated and proved it
I even created a little web page for the app, but I’ve mostly abandoned the idea due to a lack of interest.