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Effective Spaced Repetition

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Re: Effective Spaced Repetition

#141

Post by wordpad25 »

oslac wrote: post #137
Avijit_Thawani wrote: post #124

Other software which have nailed spaced repetition (and a much better UI than Anki): - https://www.duolingo.com/ (language learninig) - https://www.chessable.com/ (chess) - https://readwise.io/ (book highlights) - https://examarly.com/ (test prep) - https://app.bestudious.io/login (certifications - CFA) - https://magoosh.com/ (vocabulary)

I would not call Duolingo a language learning application. It behaves more like language mimicry application. You learn a very particular subset of the language that I'd call "Duolingo ". This is my conclusion after using it for two non-English languages. You seriously need a basic beginner book if starting from fresh, and use Duolingo just as a repetition tool when you can during the day

If you're learning Duolingo subset of a language, it's still a language learning application.

Re: Effective Spaced Repetition

#142

Post by wordpad25 »

kashunstva wrote: post #136

A piece of advice that is repeated here and elsewhere is to create atomic cards. I’ve long wondered whether that is good advice or not, or whether it depends on the subject domain. The better I know a subject, the less atomic it feels. I don’t think and talk about the topic in discrete facts but in interconnected knowledge. This is why the complete independence between cards seems more like a weakness than a strength…

@kashunstva that's really interesting, how would you link cards together, though?

Have you seen this done anywhere?

Re: Effective Spaced Repetition

#143

Post by Dr_Birdbrain »

kashunstva wrote: post #136

A piece of advice that is repeated here and elsewhere is to create atomic cards. I’ve long wondered whether that is good advice or not, or whether it depends on the subject domain. The better I know a subject, the less atomic it feels. I don’t think and talk about the topic in discrete facts but in interconnected knowledge. This is why the complete independence between cards seems more like a weakness than a strength…

I have been a regular Anki user for many years.

My approach to making cards is actually to take long-form notes on the topic at hand, then apply close deletions to key parts, like equations, key ideas, and definitions.

This makes it so that the piece I need to actively recall is small(ish), but I still have the context

Re: Effective Spaced Repetition

#144

Post by nojs »

tiagod wrote: post #91

>A common failure mode (and I did this more than once, before I got the hang of it) is to use Anki for two weeks, then drop it, and pick it back up six months later only to find you have 600 cards due for review. This is not encouraging, and it defeats the point of spaced repetition, which is to review the cards on the intervals the algorithm chooses. >I don’t have much advice in this area, except that if you have pe…

I use this service to hold me accountable to “Anki zero” every day:

https://bossasaservice.com/

Re: Effective Spaced Repetition

#145

Post by atahanacar »

MichaelNolan wrote: post #100
atahanacar wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. As a med student who uses Anki for basically everything, this is plain wrong. The time spent on making cards is better spent on studying. Premade cards (Anking in this case) have relevant pages from multiple sources, relevant histology/gross photos and additional notes for every card, and all cards are tagged with their corresponding chapters in multiple textbooks. If I spent time trying to do something similar (…

Med school is a bit of an outlier, because they have high quality shared decks. Most subjects have very low quality shared decks. I don’t think any other subject at all has a shared deck that’s of similar quality to what AnKing provides for the medical community. Geography/maps have some good shared decks as well.

I don't know about other subjects, so I can't comment on that. I use Anki for med school and language learning, and both have high quality decks. I guess I'm lucky.

Re: Effective Spaced Repetition

#146

Post by c7b »

tiagod wrote: post #91

>A common failure mode (and I did this more than once, before I got the hang of it) is to use Anki for two weeks, then drop it, and pick it back up six months later only to find you have 600 cards due for review. This is not encouraging, and it defeats the point of spaced repetition, which is to review the cards on the intervals the algorithm chooses. >I don’t have much advice in this area, except that if you have pe…

The SM algorithms, trying to predict the perfect time for reviewing a question, seem like overengineering to me (and also not very well supported by research afaik - we have evidence that repetitions help, but much less what the perfect spacing is). Just randomly sample questions with probabilities proportional to how 'urgently' you need to see them, seems like the most intuitive approach to me. No daily quotas, no running out of questions, just do a few when you feel like it and don't worry about whether you're doing too much or too little repetition.

Is there an app/plugin that works like that? I know you could use Anki like that by just not worrying about the backlog, but in my experience it doesn't work like that.

Re: Effective Spaced Repetition

#147

Post by atahanacar »

cpburns2009 wrote: post #109
atahanacar wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. As a med student who uses Anki for basically everything, this is plain wrong. The time spent on making cards is better spent on studying. Premade cards (Anking in this case) have relevant pages from multiple sources, relevant histology/gross photos and additional notes for every card, and all cards are tagged with their corresponding chapters in multiple textbooks. If I spent time trying to do something similar (…

My wife gave up trying to use Anki in med school because it worked against her. There's no way to go through a whole deck in one sitting. Anki might be useful for a few light cards every day but it's useless for the long study sessions demanded by med school.

Going through a whole deck in one sitting is not the correct way to do it. Your brain gets tired and it needs some rest. The way I did it is use the tags to filter topics every day by lectures in my school. Once I complete the day and still have energy left, I'd move on the the next day and continue until I'm tired. I'd finish around 3 times quicker than the pace of school lectures.

One thing with Anki or any other SRS is that it only works if you do it on time. Doing a few cards for a short amount of time and claiming "Anki doesn't work" is just nonsense.

>Anki might be useful for a few light cards every day but it's useless for the long study sessions demanded by med school.

This could be one of the most controversial statements for med students. Every classmate I talk to either uses Anki or a local commercial SRS specifically made for my country's med school curriculum/exams. And it's not just my friends or my country either, r/medicalschool shows the same tendencies.

Re: Effective Spaced Repetition

#148

Post by nathanmcrae »

ivvve wrote: post #111
zetalyrae wrote: post #35

I wrote this. Ask me anything!

How would you reccomend I learn history with spaced repetition? I'm studying a detailed subject independently (I.e. not for an exam with a set curriculum) and I'm finding it hard to atomise the cards down bevond dates and names. I suppose I should start there first and then build more complex cards, but I'm not sure what the best approach for those is. Thanks for the detailed article!

I'm currently doing this and personally I believe the dates and names approach is best (depending on your goals). The theory is that if you have a solid grasp of the coarse details like births/deaths/major battles then when you are reading about the more subtle ideas (like what factors caused the fall of the Roman empire) you will be able to couch those ideas in the concrete framework you've already built. Then those ideas will be able to stick better.

I've only been doing it for a year and change so we'll see how it goes, but I think it's a good approach.

Re: Effective Spaced Repetition

#149

Post by atahanacar »

SpaceManNabs wrote: post #80
atahanacar wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. As a med student who uses Anki for basically everything, this is plain wrong. The time spent on making cards is better spent on studying. Premade cards (Anking in this case) have relevant pages from multiple sources, relevant histology/gross photos and additional notes for every card, and all cards are tagged with their corresponding chapters in multiple textbooks. If I spent time trying to do something similar (…

yes if you are trying to memorize facts and reference material and maybe even language, then yes, using premade cards are probably chill. especially if all the material is standard. if you are reading abstract stuff or more novel stuff that people are still understanding, then your own breakdown and understanding used to make cards is incredibly more helpful. If i was learning differential calculus, someone's analogi…

>i have to admit i added my own bias here so thank you for expanding.

Same here, thank you. I don't know much about other topics. I use Anki for med school and language learning, both of which have great premade decks. But I think I can see now why creating your own decks can be more useful for abstract stuff. Kind of like that memorization method where you create stories related to things you are trying to memorize. It only works when you are the one who created the story.

Re: Effective Spaced Repetition

#150

Post by JCharante »

wordpad25 wrote: post #141
oslac wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not call Duolingo a language learning application. It behaves more like language mimicry application. You learn a very particular subset of the language that I'd call "Duolingo ". This is my conclusion after using it for two non-English languages. You seriously need a basic beginner book if starting from fresh, and use Duolingo just as a repetition tool when you can during the day

If you're learning Duolingo subset of a language, it's still a language learning application.

It's more like a side quest rather than main story line. And that's okay.
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