tgb comments on [Link] Why the kids don’t know no algebra - Less Wrong

21 Post author: GLaDOS 04 July 2012 10:29AM

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Comment author: tgb 04 July 2012 04:45:42PM 11 points [-]

Reading the blog post that this one links to made me immediately think of SRS - isn't that exactly what it's design for? Don't focus on the stuff you just learned, but on the stuff you are about to forget. Maybe we should be doing many-year SRS for our students and doing more cumulative testing and practice. Or maybe I'm still naive and blaming the teachers! I guess I'm just not a cynic.

Comment author: bogus 04 July 2012 09:20:21PM 2 points [-]

Agreed. Last I checked (don't have a reference right now, unfortunately), Khan Academy was experimenting with a SRS-like feature in their system, in order to tackle this very problem. Everyone tends to forget stuff they're not motivated to use - it's not at all limited to "problem" students.

Comment author: gwern 04 July 2012 11:05:30PM 3 points [-]

IIRC, I was told in #lesswrong by a KA contractor or employee that they knew of SRS and some were thinking about how to integrate it.

Comment author: tgb 04 July 2012 11:46:47PM 0 points [-]

Awesome! This makes me more interested in KA as an organization.

Comment author: gwern 05 July 2012 12:33:57AM 4 points [-]

Well, I'd be more impressed if they had already integrated it. They (some members) have known of it for probably years at this point, know it's a big win in review efficiency, and have a review process already coded and running. All the SRS algorithm is really just a sort of exponential for scheduling the next review! It's not any actual new functionality; my programming intuition is that it should be pretty easy to add, so that they still haven't rather annoys me. Lost opportunities...