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A love letter to flashcards

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Re: A love letter to flashcards

#21

Post by helterskelter »

deviation wrote: post #15

I use Anki to learn French, Chess openings/tactics/techniques, to unscramble letters for scrabble, for Pub Trivia... The options are kind of limitless. As a mid-30s guy who has well passed the neuroplasticity of his teen years, it's a godsend for me. To echo the author's thoughts though, I can't prove empirically that I learn more effectively using Anki (or spaced repetition) than other methods... Only anecdotally. I…

Practicing your retrieval is actually one of the best ways to retain knowledge of something. Flashcard programs like Anki are really great because it identifies where you need more work and drills you on your weak points -- it feels awkward working constantly on your weak points, but you get quantifiably better results with the flashcard method it uses.

Some people criticize flashcards as optimizing for rote memorization and deemphasizing understanding, but you'll never achieve understanding or mastery in general without a solid platform of knowledge to work from.

Re: A love letter to flashcards

#22

Post by BeetleB »

PandaRider wrote: post #2

> From this perspective, fields that require deep understanding, like math, require memory just as fields with a breadth of shallow knowledge do, though in different ways. I'm interested in understanding how others use Anki for conceptual subjects like pure math or physics. I believe many fundamental rules in Spaced Repetition (e.g. like keeping cards concise) are thrown out the window for conceptual subjects.

It is a bit more challenging, but it is workable.

Same caveat as in the article: Spaced repetition is just one (minor) part of learning math/physics. It alone won't get you anywhere.

For math - particularly higher level math, the most obvious use case is definitions. There are so many!

You can put theorems in there, but it is a bit challenging on how to phrase it. A single theorem could result in several smaller flash cards.

I think what works better is taking a theorem, finding a representative problem that is solved via that theorem, and make the problem statement the question. The downside of this approach is each card takes longer to process as this is not just plain recall, but actively solving a problem. For this reason, I keep such cards in a separate deck and review them only when I have time I can dedicate (e.g. spending well over a minute per card).

Re: A love letter to flashcards

#23

Post by wordpad »

deviation wrote: post #15

I use Anki to learn French, Chess openings/tactics/techniques, to unscramble letters for scrabble, for Pub Trivia... The options are kind of limitless. As a mid-30s guy who has well passed the neuroplasticity of his teen years, it's a godsend for me. To echo the author's thoughts though, I can't prove empirically that I learn more effectively using Anki (or spaced repetition) than other methods... Only anecdotally. I…

I think deliberate practice is what's really core to improving any skill, including memory.

Spaced repetition is an effective way to review things but its biggest benefit is a process that's easy to be consistent with.

Somebody else can have equal or better performance with other technique but just like dieting, it doesnt matter as much what method you use as long as you stick with it.

Re: A love letter to flashcards

#24

Post by BeetleB »

digital_ghoul wrote: post #19
PandaRider wrote: post #2

> From this perspective, fields that require deep understanding, like math, require memory just as fields with a breadth of shallow knowledge do, though in different ways. I'm interested in understanding how others use Anki for conceptual subjects like pure math or physics. I believe many fundamental rules in Spaced Repetition (e.g. like keeping cards concise) are thrown out the window for conceptual subjects.

I took my first real analysis course last semester, and I made flashcards with pen and paper for every single non trivial definition, theorem, lemma, and corollary that we covered in lecture. Analysis definitions and theorems get really complicated with intricate and difficult to follow logical chains, and there are a lot to remember. These definitions and results don’t mean much on their own without exploring their…

> I took my first real analysis course last semester,

> These definitions and results don’t mean much on their own without exploring their neighbourhoods

Were these epsilon-neighborhoods?

Re: A love letter to flashcards

#25

Post by BeetleB »

wtetzner wrote: post #8
PandaRider wrote: post #2

> From this perspective, fields that require deep understanding, like math, require memory just as fields with a breadth of shallow knowledge do, though in different ways. I'm interested in understanding how others use Anki for conceptual subjects like pure math or physics. I believe many fundamental rules in Spaced Repetition (e.g. like keeping cards concise) are thrown out the window for conceptual subjects.

I kinda feel like using memorization techniques for things that require deeper understanding probably isn't the most efficient way to learn. IMO you want to be actively trying to map the new concepts to things you already understand, and constantly working to update your mental model.

> IMO you want to be actively trying to map the new concepts to things you already understand, and constantly working to update your mental model.

It's not an either-or.

Where SRS comes in handy is when you have to take long breaks between your study sessions (due to job + family). Have you ever tried learning an advanced math topic where you get to work on it for a few days, then may have to stop for a few weeks (or even months), then resume, and repeat over and over?

Chances are, no matter how intense you study during those few days, you'll likely forget important definitions/theorems in the periods you don't.

SRS takes care of those gaps.

Case in point - many years ago I put a lot of my intro to statistics course in flashcards and actively reviewed them. I hadn't done actual statistics for over a year, and then made a (false) claim here on HN. Someone gave me a counterexample using the chi-squared distribution. And it was amazing that I could recall the basic properties of the chi-squared distribution, and enough other theorems to verify what he said without consulting any book.

I've never used the chi-squared distribution for anything before or after.

(Sadly, I stopped using those cards years ago so I've forgotten the material!)

Re: A love letter to flashcards

#26

Post by helterskelter »

PandaRider wrote: post #2

> From this perspective, fields that require deep understanding, like math, require memory just as fields with a breadth of shallow knowledge do, though in different ways. I'm interested in understanding how others use Anki for conceptual subjects like pure math or physics. I believe many fundamental rules in Spaced Repetition (e.g. like keeping cards concise) are thrown out the window for conceptual subjects.

Depends on how you use the flashcards. You can use them to memorize definitions and equalities, and you can also use them as quiz questions which excercise your reason and not simply your memory. For example, you make a flashcard for each excercise question in your textbook. Once you identify what you're struggling with, make more flashcards of that same problem type to avoid remembering the solutions. This will take you from a shaky understanding to much firmer ground pretty quickly.

Honestly just making the flashcards and elaborating on/modifying problems you're struggling with will take you a very long way.

Re: A love letter to flashcards

#27

Post by digital_ghoul »

BeetleB wrote: post #24
digital_ghoul wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took my first real analysis course last semester, and I made flashcards with pen and paper for every single non trivial definition, theorem, lemma, and corollary that we covered in lecture. Analysis definitions and theorems get really complicated with intricate and difficult to follow logical chains, and there are a lot to remember. These definitions and results don’t mean much on their own without exploring their…

> I took my first real analysis course last semester, > These definitions and results don’t mean much on their own without exploring their neighbourhoods Were these epsilon-neighborhoods?

I couldn’t resist :)

Re: A love letter to flashcards

#28

Post by taude »

I do a really lightweight version of flash cards. Everytime I'm learning a new tool or tech, I grab oversized notecards (my favorite are 8x5" dot-grid cards). I put a label at the top, and create bullet points of each item i want to remember. I then review. No individual cards for each item or anything. Just all the things grouped on one card as bullet points.

For example, I'll have a `sqlite` card, and put all the commands and everything on it, as I learn them. I'll use it as a cheatsheet, but then also a few minutes of mindful review. This for the toolings that I want to know well enough to not get slowed down googling the commands. I do this for a lot of CLI tools, but also things I need to remember about the business of my company and working across group, etc....

Eventually the five or six working cards I have, get put on a pile and new ones come in.....

Re: A love letter to flashcards

#29

Post by bunderbunder »

zeafoamrun wrote: post #20
bunderbunder wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a big part of why language learners have largely moved toward sentence mining as the preferred way to build an Anki deck. Getting your words from real-world contexts, and keeping that context on the front of the card, largely eliminates the ambiguity problem. If a word has multiple senses, it gets multiple cards with different example sentences to illustrate each one. It also helps a bunch with words that don…

Thank you, its good to hear some of what the state of the art is. My natural language processing studies at university are around the vintage you mention. I will have a go at this...

Yeah, NLP is a different beast from human language learning.

The most salient difference here is that NLP wants to automate as much as possible for reasons that are specific to NLP.

But for human language learning a lot of automation is actually harmful because manual effort tends to be good for Ebbinghaus’s arguably more important but less popularly appreciated discovery: memory encoding quality.

Re: A love letter to flashcards

#30

Post by Jtarii »

wtetzner wrote: post #8
PandaRider wrote: post #2

> From this perspective, fields that require deep understanding, like math, require memory just as fields with a breadth of shallow knowledge do, though in different ways. I'm interested in understanding how others use Anki for conceptual subjects like pure math or physics. I believe many fundamental rules in Spaced Repetition (e.g. like keeping cards concise) are thrown out the window for conceptual subjects.

I kinda feel like using memorization techniques for things that require deeper understanding probably isn't the most efficient way to learn. IMO you want to be actively trying to map the new concepts to things you already understand, and constantly working to update your mental model.

Familiarity through repetition is 95% of learning any subject. Mathematics isn't special.
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