I used to be very excited about spaced repetition, but haven't taken it as seriously in several years. Yes, it is superior to more ordinary methods of quizzing vocabulary, and I would still use it if I had to pass a vocabulary/fact test on a subject I didn't care about.<p>As a method of developing real competency in a subject or practice, though, it offers none of the benefits of immersion as it keeps the student just on the edge of full engagement (and if we add immersion, we lose the time-savings that spaced repetition offers.) It introduces a fragility into the student's schedule that make lapses in 'discipline' more likely (not everyone has a teacher and regular subject periods to keep them on task.) For anything beyond basic key-value learning, it requires too many contortions and restatements of the subject -- to fit the format -- to be feasible for many students/subjects. The packaged decks available online help but usually don't meet the needs of the specific course or subject concentration the student requires. We can introduce variability to space how to solve a problem instead of a 'what' answer, but then we need to consider muscle memory, developing intuition and other things that the spaced repetition model does not address.
I overestimated the effect of spaced repetition. For six months, I used Anki every day to recap Chinese characters. At the end of the term I was perfectly prepared for the test. Afterwards, I didn't study my flash cards again. Only a few weeks later I found out that I've forgotten most characters or at least some of their details. I expected that after six months of daily practice (about 20 minutes per day) I would have stored at least some characters in my long term memory.
As someone who has dabbled in both biology/chemistry and now computer science academically, my thoughts on flash cards and spaced repetition software has changed over the years.<p>On one side you have the biology/chemistry guys who tend to use a lot of flashcards, and have a reputation for "just memorizing" facts. Then on the other end you have the physics/computer science guys who often refer to themselves as "lazy" for lack of memorizing and have a reputation for only focusing on conceptual ideas.<p>It seems to me that the people who succeed utilize a mixture of both approaches ("memorization" and "conceptual understanding"). I'm not sure when these two approaches suddenly became mutually exclusive.<p>As an example, although there were some classes in Biology that required a heavy amount of memorization, without the flash cards it would have been very hard for me to make the conceptual connections during lectures, while reading, etc.<p>Knowledge and understanding is kind of like a spider web, the more you have, the more you are able to grasp.<p>Purely focusing on conceptualizing the topics at hand has never worked out as well as I had hoped.
For those interested in memory and learning and who want some hints on why SRS work, Make It Stick[1] is probably a must-read.<p>[1] <a href="http://makeitstick.net/" rel="nofollow">http://makeitstick.net/</a>
Sounds like an interesting startup idea: SRS for classrooms<p>Probably not a millionaire-in-5-years or one-man-lifestyle business. More of a improve-the-world kind.
There's two major parts to learning a language: recognition and production. SRS can be quite good as a tool to aid in recognition, but I've found it to be lousy for production.<p>This is a classic problem in language pedagogy.<p>Some old comment of mine from almost a year ago <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8510165" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8510165</a><p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8251569" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8251569</a><p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8253351" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8253351</a><p>I think "completing the circuit" is among the most important aspect of educational theory. Recognize and produce needs to happen in <i>any</i> subject, and a good student recognizes that SRS is but one tool for recognition, but others are needed to complete that, and production is an entirely different side of the coin.
Last year, I have developed a JS library SM.js (<a href="https://github.com/slaypni/SM-15" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/slaypni/SM-15</a>) which is based on the algorithm used in the latest SuperMemo.<p>I have also developed a web service (<a href="http://slaypni.github.io/flashward/" rel="nofollow">http://slaypni.github.io/flashward/</a>) for memorizing Foreign words using the library. Through the experience of using it by myself, I felt that spaced repetition helped me to remember many words for learning English.<p>I am feeling that most (free) SRS are using relatively simple algorithms (for example, Anki is based on SM-2 which is developed in the late1980s). Although I am not sure SM-15 is better enough, there could be some room to improve it. It is nice if the library was helpful for some developers who create new SRS.
A couple months ago I put together a spaced repetition app (<a href="https://www.memoread.io/" rel="nofollow">https://www.memoread.io/</a>) aimed at less tech savvy students. At the time it didn't meet much success, although I may revisit it in the future.
I've been using SRS to learn 日本語 for some time now. Prior to this, my ability to remember kanji was basically nil. I could spend tons of time writing it over and over again, and nearly immediately forget how to write it, and shortly after, forget how to read it.<p>I switched to using Anki, and the reading at least became quite cemented - I still struggle with writing at times, but it's a significant improvement over what it was previously.<p>Daily study is hugely important - if I go out and have a crazy weekend, I hate myself Monday, and my study session becomes 3 or 4 times longer than it would otherwise.