How to Make Spaced Repetition Mainstream
Introduction
Throughout this article, I assume that the reader is somewhat familiar with spaced repetition[1]. If not, here’s a brief introduction. Spaced repetition is a learning technique that allows the learner to remember things for many years. It’s quite simple, and it incorporates increasing intervals of time between subsequent repetitions of the material.
The most common implementation nowadays is flashcard software. It works like this. You create a flashcard consisting of a question and an answer to it. The next day the app asks you this question. If your answer is correct, it will ask you this question with increasing intervals. For example, in 1 week, in 3 weeks, in 2 months and so on. The most well-known apps are probably Anki and SuperMemo.
Multiple scientific studies show that spaced repetition works. Moreover, it works very well. It’s been almost a century since we discovered spaced repetition. One would expect that this technique is widely adopted in education. The reality is that it found only niche applications so far. Why is that? Here I want to share my thoughts regarding this question and propose a possible solution.
Why spaced repetition has not taken off (yet)
There is an obvious problem with spaced repetition. It’s quite tiresome to make your own questions and answers for every single thing you need to remember. On the one hand, to make a question and an answer you have to retell what you’ve just read in your own words. The consensus is that retelling the material in your own words is quite beneficial for understanding. However, what’s the use in these benefits if it’s too hard for most people to do? SuperMemo usage statistics suggest that only about 1% of those who try to use it continues to do so regularly[2]. I conducted some personal interviews regarding spaced repetition and learning in general. Several people said outright that it seems too hard to make the questions of their own. So they won’t do it. On the other hand, they also said that if the questions were ready-made, they would try to use them. All of this gives us a hint that to make spaced repetition mainstream, we have to provide most people with already existing question-answer pairs.
Let’s look at the existing solutions. Spaced repetition is used in many language learning apps. The solution they offer is ready-made flashcards. You don’t have to make your own questions. Problem solved.
With Quizlet people can easily share their flashcard decks. It claims to use a variation of the spaced repetition algorithm. However, since it’s optimized for cramming, it’s not well optimized for long-term retention.
Medical students use Anki and share their decks among themselves. There is even a subreddit devoted to sharing medical decks /r/medicalschoolanki, and it has 18k members as of now. I’m not a medical student. I tried to read those decks. It feels like reading a random set of facts. So I don’t think I can learn from those much (in contrast to textbooks and scientific articles). Trying to practice from those decks in Anki would be like jumping into water before learning to swim. However, it’s crucial for doctors to be able to remember large amounts of information. Students use those decks with success. Therefore it should work to some extent.
Knowledge Transfer
But we know that we can transfer knowledge from one person to another. How do we do it? We read books. We read articles. We listen to lectures. Unfortunately, all of those are terrible at actually making you remember the things they have to say.
What are the main differences between a book and a flashcard deck? What makes a book so good at transferring knowledge? And what makes a flashcard deck so good at retaining knowledge in one’s mind?
While it’s obvious why a flashcard deck is so good, it’s not obvious why a book or an online course works. Books and online courses come in different shapes and forms. So it’s hard to pinpoint the reason they work so well (at least sometimes). But it seems that there are at least two universal features. One is telling a story meaning that it resembles a person talking to you and explaining something. The other is the fact they all have a structure.
Now we can see that a flashcard deck usually lacks the two universal features of a book. It doesn’t tell you much on its own. It doesn’t explain the thing it’s testing. And it doesn’t have the structure a book usually has.
The most trivial solution is an Anki deck created by the author of a book or an online course. You take a course. Then you answer the questions from an Anki deck as a kind of an exam. But it seems that in most cases this scenario is too complicated for people to use.
The Solution
OK, what is the solution I’m trying to propose? It’s the structure plus flashcards, all in one place. You have an online course divided into sections. Each section looks like an article or a document. But throughout this article, flashcards could be inserted right into the text. Now instead of a simple deck, you have a full course with flashcards placed at appropriate places throughout the course.
I can see two ways this solution can work.
People could use such a platform for personal use. I like to take notes while learning something new. A platform described above allows me to make study notes and create flashcards in the same place. Also, if an online course is open source, I can just copy it and add flashcards throughout the course. Some of the courses created this way could also be useful for others.
On the other hand, professional course creators could build online courses from the ground up. They could optimize their courses with spaced repetition in mind. For example, many non-fiction books and textbooks reiterate the same point over and over to remind it to the reader. It seems that spaced repetition reduces the need for repeating the same point throughout the course, making it more concise.
What makes us think that the questions created by one person can be used by another? Among the spaced repetition crowd it’s often said that (apart from languages and medical terms) you can’t use other’s flashcard decks. But if we look at online courses, we would see quizzes, tests, exams. And you mostly understand what is being asked and whether your answer is right or not. Therefore it corroborates the hypothesis that properly made questions can make sense in the context of an online course regardless of who created them.
The implementation
To test the idea described above, we implemented the most basic version of it. It has only the essential features that we think are necessary to see how it works. It’s available at learnitfast.io
What we ask is honest feedback. Would such a system useful for you? Do you think integrating spaced repetition in online courses would work?
And we would be even more grateful if you try out our implementation. What do you like? What don’t you like? Maybe you think something vital is lacking?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition
[2] https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Exponential_adoption_of_spaced_repetition