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Spaced repetition for efficient learning (2019)

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Re: Spaced repetition for efficient learning (2019)

#51

Post by ben_w »

ChadNauseam wrote: post #37
ben_w wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not sure what the best way to solve this problem is. I would much appreciate any advice. Serious answer: All the dark patterns. Loot boxes even if they only give users a digital hat, small animated bird (like the green one, but not) doing a silly dance when users get enough correct answers, some weird phrases sprinkled amongst the lessons which make the users laugh. Just, please let them have an off switch for…

Something funny is that I watched someone use my app for the first time yesterday, and she specifically requested more dark patterns. She said "you should add something that makes you want to come back like the duolingo owl looking sad". I don't know if I can bring myself to do that, but I have a feeling that I can find a way to play to my strengths rather than copy duolingo. Specifically, my advantage is that my app…

I absolutely understand your reluctance; Duolingo isn't the only thing you can take inspiratiom from, you can have an XP/level system like Clozemaster, which has (had?) an animated celebration gif on level-up and also an option to switch it off.

Re: Spaced repetition for efficient learning (2019)

#52

Post by renewiltord »

ChadNauseam wrote: post #5

One counterintuitive issue with spaced repetition is that the modern algorithms like FSRS are actually almost too good at scheduling. The effect is that each card is almost perfectly scheduled to be very difficult but still doable. Now, it's a bit weird to call it an issue considering it's the whole concept working exactly as designed. But it does cause one follow-up problem. The problem is that in life, we are accus…

Have you considered a “Challenge” mode where a user can simply see what “level” they’re at? The Pimsleur app has a more natural fixed progression and also a spaced repetition feature (I think) but running a challenge on an older class definitely gives me a feeling of “okay, I definitely know this material”.

And for what it’s worth, I’ve been able to sufficiently communicate some basics with my wife’s family in Mandarin that has them thrilled with me. So the learning in P is working somewhat.

Re: Spaced repetition for efficient learning (2019)

#53

Post by ChadNauseam »

noahjk wrote: post #47
ChadNauseam wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something funny is that I watched someone use my app for the first time yesterday, and she specifically requested more dark patterns. She said "you should add something that makes you want to come back like the duolingo owl looking sad". I don't know if I can bring myself to do that, but I have a feeling that I can find a way to play to my strengths rather than copy duolingo. Specifically, my advantage is that my app…

Trying your app from your profile, and the movie thing is a bit weird for two reasons - at first, I thought it was an ad when it popped up above the fold, and second, I'm seeing a bunch of horror posters, which I don't really want to see? The movie thing is 'neat' but my main reason for learning another language isn't to be able to tell people "I know 56% of the words in La Bruja"

Thanks, I really appreciate the feedback. I removed the horror movies from the database, so they shouldn't show up anymore. I also made some changes to make the poster it selects appear less like an ad. It was kind of over the top before

Re: Spaced repetition for efficient learning (2019)

#54

Post by criley2 »

vunderba wrote: post #31
criley2 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a half dozen language learning apps on my phone and have vibe coded a few concepts as well and while spaced recognition is amazing, it still suffers from the duolingo "vocabulary is not a language" problem. IMO the way around users feeling like spaced recognition isn't progression is by redefining progression away from memorizing vocabulary into into becoming proficient in conversation both listening and speak…

I’ve pointed this out before on HN, but if you want to use ChatGPT as a language partner, you must provide a topic . Expecting it to behave as a proactive teacher is a recipe for disappointment. Here’s what I typically do: - Create a custom GPT (mine is called Polly the Glot) with a system prompt instructing it to act as a language partner that responds only in Chinese or your target language of choice. Further speci…

I have played around pretty significantly with the markdown context idea but managing it by hand is pretty tough.

- I take chinese tutoring lessons on italki with a tutor who uses notion (copy paste in markdown)

- I copy/paste our notion notes in markdown into a repo for storage

- I use AI to summarize lessons and to keep general context on progress

- I use AI to generate a voice AI lesson plan, such as 10 words to focus on, reviewing a specific human tutoring session, or some conversational focus area.

- I start the advanced voice AI with the context

Unfortunately the AI still loses the plot pretty quickly and devolves into free form conversation. It struggles significantly to enforce any kind of structure that would be helpful for structured learning. I haven't tried this in a few months though, maybe newer models are improving.

Re: Spaced repetition for efficient learning (2019)

#55

Post by huhtenberg »

ChadNauseam wrote: post #35
zahlman wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just have the program point out the size of the word pool it's drawing from. "Number go up" is objective and clearly motivates people in other disciplines (someone else mentioned lifting weights).

I've just added this yesterday. It now shows you how close you are to knowing 95% of the words of various movies. I think movies are a good goal, but I want earlier milestones too, so I need to think more. (Maybe spongebob episodes would be good actually)

> knowing 95% of the words of various movies

Ah, that's what it's meant! I thought it was some sort of affiliate Amazon link or an ad, but it wasn't clickable and made little sense given the context.

Re: Spaced repetition for efficient learning (2019)

#56

Post by leonhard »

boxed wrote: post #30
yard2010 wrote: post #4

Anecdotally I stumbled upon this phenomenon when trying to learn how to play the piano. I noticed that at the end of a session I make so many mistakes and feel like I didn't learn that much, but coming back to it after a day or two I really felt the difference.

Motor learning is quite different from the type of information the article talks about. I tried adding dance moves into Anki to do spaced repetition and it's extremely obvious that it's a great way to remember a move very badly but never getting good at it. Compare that to the geography deck where Anki is just perfectly suited for the task and smashes it.

Do you have more experiences with learning dance moves and spaced repetition you can share? That sounds interesting. (Also what dance is it?)

Re: Spaced repetition for efficient learning (2019)

#57

Post by victorbjorklund »

bluGill wrote: post #13
ChadNauseam wrote: post #5

One counterintuitive issue with spaced repetition is that the modern algorithms like FSRS are actually almost too good at scheduling. The effect is that each card is almost perfectly scheduled to be very difficult but still doable. Now, it's a bit weird to call it an issue considering it's the whole concept working exactly as designed. But it does cause one follow-up problem. The problem is that in life, we are accus…

If your only exposure to words is the spaced repititon why are you wasting your time learning? Use the language and soon you won't need the repitition at all. The app is good to start because you need a couple thousand words before you can do anything, but in a few months you should be switching from learning words to reading and listening (and soon after writting and talking). if you do it that way most words will o…

You kind of need enough knowledge to use it in a fun way. You only know 100 words of Spanish and no grammar etc? Well, that won’t be any fun stories to read, fun conversations to have etc.

Notice I use ”fun” on purpose. Because some people are able to enjoy the process of using the language even at that stage (but many do not).

Re: Spaced repetition for efficient learning (2019)

#58

Post by watwut »

ChadNauseam wrote: post #5

One counterintuitive issue with spaced repetition is that the modern algorithms like FSRS are actually almost too good at scheduling. The effect is that each card is almost perfectly scheduled to be very difficult but still doable. Now, it's a bit weird to call it an issue considering it's the whole concept working exactly as designed. But it does cause one follow-up problem. The problem is that in life, we are accus…

Frankly, they are not at all good at that. At least for me, they just failed. Thr fact is, they have no idea about when I am about to forget this or that fact.

Re: Spaced repetition for efficient learning (2019)

#59

Post by watwut »

Denzel wrote: post #17
ChadNauseam wrote: post #5

One counterintuitive issue with spaced repetition is that the modern algorithms like FSRS are actually almost too good at scheduling. The effect is that each card is almost perfectly scheduled to be very difficult but still doable. Now, it's a bit weird to call it an issue considering it's the whole concept working exactly as designed. But it does cause one follow-up problem. The problem is that in life, we are accus…

‘Desirable difficulty’ is the research term. To solve your problem, first understand your users need a mindset change. We need to connect their action to a “satisfying feeling” as you said. You want your users to be like weight lifters. No lifter comes out the gym saying, “Man that was the best workout, felt so easy,” to the contrary, lifters use progressive overload to induce difficulty because that difficulty conne…

Weightlifters use weight they can lift and feel good after the session. Literally. They may feel tired, but they feel good. They see weights go up and feel like progressing (unless they are in fact stagnating).

That is literal opposite of what OP describes. What OP describes is weight lifter taking on weight they cant lift and conatantly feeling like a failure after each training.

Re: Spaced repetition for efficient learning (2019)

#60

Post by yogsototh »

ChadNauseam wrote: post #5

One counterintuitive issue with spaced repetition is that the modern algorithms like FSRS are actually almost too good at scheduling. The effect is that each card is almost perfectly scheduled to be very difficult but still doable. Now, it's a bit weird to call it an issue considering it's the whole concept working exactly as designed. But it does cause one follow-up problem. The problem is that in life, we are accus…

I remember a documentary about learning things to kids, and in order to optimise learning efficiency the optimal ratio for difficult questions should be 1/4. So the children continue to feel good about themselves, while still improving.

So I guess this ratio about easy vs difficult question should be a parameter in such spaced repetition algorithms.

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