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RichardKennaway comments on Open Thread, May 11 - May 17, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: Gondolinian 11 May 2015 12:16AM

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Comment author: RichardKennaway 11 May 2015 12:40:59PM 1 point [-]

An idea: auto-generated anki-style flashcards for mathematical notation.

Auto-generated exercises might be better. Compared with e.g. learning a language, there aren't many elementary components to mathematical notation to be memorised.

The exercises might be auto-rated for complexity, and a generalised Anki for this sort of material would generate random examples of various degrees of complexity, and make the distribution of complexity depend in some way on the distribution of your errors with respect to complexity.

Language learning materials might be similarly generalised from the simple vocabulary lists that flashcards are usually used for.

Comment author: sixes_and_sevens 11 May 2015 02:21:06PM 0 points [-]

I agree that auto-generated exercises would be a superior utility, but that seems like a much trickier proposition.

Also, for clarification, this wouldn't be used for memorising notation, but for training fluency in it. My use of Anki as a comparison might have been misguided.