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Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

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Re: Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

#31

Post by mwerty »

andymism wrote: post #28
mwerty wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried anki and while I liked it, I want to be interrupted while working on code/browsing to test/reinforce. Is there an app that does that?

I'm curious why you want to be interrupted while coding to test be tested. That kind of task switching would be horrible for me and is the reason why I have email turned off during coding sessions.

It would not work for involved things. My hypothesis is that if it's really quick recall, I'll be fine: I'm trying to reinforce the map from numbers to sounds (Harry Lorayne).

Re: Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

#32

Post by tigerthink »

tocomment wrote: post #17

Is there someone I can try this out for free? Are there ready made flashcards for something useful to learn?

As mentioned above, Anki and Supermemo are two free implementations. As for ready-made flashcards, here are some I made for a calculus class:

http://www.spicyelephant.com/decks/523 http://www.spicyelephant.com/decks/577 http://www.spicyelephant.com/decks/659

You probably have to register for an account if you want the site to apply supermemo-type techniques. I don't recommend using the site in the long term because it will eventually force you to register for $20.

Re: Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

#33

Post by bjelkeman-again »

btilly wrote: post #22
tocomment wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you made this story into a blog post, people would listen. (I'm actually serious, it's an interesting story and a lot of people might benefit from hearing more of the details and the thought process behind it.

I'll think about it. I won't get around to it in the near future though, sorry.

Please do, as I am sure there are a bunch of us who would love to hear more about it.

Re: Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

#34

Post by bjelkeman-again »

sandGorgon wrote: post #16
cesare wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. I was just wondering if there was a similar open source project. Anki: http://ichi2.net/anki/ Wikipedia entry about this technique: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition

Mnemosyne is actually very good http://www.mnemosyne-proj.org/ it works on Win, Mac and Linux - written in Python

This should really be made into a web service. Where all the new card decks are shared for free. I think it could become a very powerful collaborative environment.

Re: Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

#35

Post by gwern »

elai wrote: post #15
btilly wrote: post #2

In grad school I managed to take advantage of the pacing effect in an educational setting. I was teaching linear algebra. What I did was make the homework incremental - 1/3 of homework on today's material, 1/3 on the previous week, and 1/3 anything in the course. Those thirds were in increasing order of difficulty. I also started every class with a question/answer period. The rules were simple, the questioning will l…

Could you go into more details into SRS for math? "Fact Memorizing" type systems seem to fit well with things like supermemo (languages, law, history, biology, a bunch of sciences), but not so much with things like math (other than memorizing formulas). And did you really add homework questions like find the kernel of this subspace in the first few weeks of the course?

Speaking from my personal experience: you can get very far just by dumping a few hundred questions/examples/small-problems into your favorite SRS. That's so many that your mind, rather than memorize them, will instead learn just how to do them. This works as well for math or CS as for languages.

I've proposed for Mnemosyne 2.0 that there be a card type which is just some Python code which is evaluated: http://groups.google.com/group/mnemosyne-proj-users/browse_t... The idea is that if you want to learn, say, multiplication, you would write some Python code that generates 2 random ints (as the question) and their product (as the answer), and now the user must solve it. You get much the same benefit as if you generated several hundred problems by hand or by script, but without cluttering your deck or risking memorizing some.

Re: Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

#36

Post by gwern »

tigerthink wrote: post #32
tocomment wrote: post #17

Is there someone I can try this out for free? Are there ready made flashcards for something useful to learn?

As mentioned above, Anki and Supermemo are two free implementations. As for ready-made flashcards, here are some I made for a calculus class: http://www.spicyelephant.com/decks/523 http://www.spicyelephant.com/decks/577 http://www.spicyelephant.com/decks/659 You probably have to register for an account if you want the site to apply supermemo-type techniques. I don't recommend using the site in the long term because i…

Supermemo isn't really free - maybe you meant 'Anki & Mnemosyne'? That's the big 2 in the Free SRS space.

Re: Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

#37

Post by TobiasCassell »

btilly wrote: post #2

In grad school I managed to take advantage of the pacing effect in an educational setting. I was teaching linear algebra. What I did was make the homework incremental - 1/3 of homework on today's material, 1/3 on the previous week, and 1/3 anything in the course. Those thirds were in increasing order of difficulty. I also started every class with a question/answer period. The rules were simple, the questioning will l…

Hey OP, was your technique influenced by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's Flow? I'm referring to the relationship between ability level and challenge. Do I see similarities with your clearly effective teaching style and some of the elements Video Game designers have almost unanimously implemented to great success?

Re: Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

#38

Post by adinobro »

imajes wrote: post #20
btilly wrote: post #2

In grad school I managed to take advantage of the pacing effect in an educational setting. I was teaching linear algebra. What I did was make the homework incremental - 1/3 of homework on today's material, 1/3 on the previous week, and 1/3 anything in the course. Those thirds were in increasing order of difficulty. I also started every class with a question/answer period. The rules were simple, the questioning will l…

I wish you were my teacher. That's a theory of education I've been pondering about for ages. Glad to see it formalized like this. Please consider running for office and fixing how we go about learning. :)

You might want to have a look at Pimsleur. The theory described is almost the same except Pimsleur was studying language learning... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pimsleur_language_learning_syst...

Re: Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

#39

Post by fburnaby »

btilly wrote: post #2

In grad school I managed to take advantage of the pacing effect in an educational setting. I was teaching linear algebra. What I did was make the homework incremental - 1/3 of homework on today's material, 1/3 on the previous week, and 1/3 anything in the course. Those thirds were in increasing order of difficulty. I also started every class with a question/answer period. The rules were simple, the questioning will l…

I'm just about to start lecturing the tutorials for a linear algebra class next week. The prof that is running the course taught it to me 4 years ago and is the reason I'm now in grad school. She did more or less the same thing that you mention, and it definitely works. I remember all of this material from back when I took the class; it's still familiar and I use it all the time.

But despite being very useful for a half to two-thirds of her students, there is always about 1/3 of the class who does terrible in this course. How did you get these people to keep up?

Anyway, I'm glad you posted this. It's a good pick-me-up motivator as I'm about to be trying to do the same thing!

Re: Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

#40

Post by cgs »

One thing I've never bothered to do is learn an API of X language really well. Because, I thought, I'll just look up whatever I don't know. But I'm constantly stopping to look things up and it really slows me down. Now I'm beginning to think there's really some value in having a strong command of an API. Has anyone tried using an SRS tool to help with this? Or is it simply a matter of not having enough experience with X language?
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