Spaced Repetition 2.0: Accounting For and Discouraging Reference Reliance

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The vision for version 2.0 of Math Academy’s spaced repetition system: account for and discourage reference reliance.

Spaced repetition is “wait”-lifting and reference material is your spotter. If your spotter had to help you get the weight up, you didn’t complete the rep, and the weight (“wait”) shouldn’t be increased as though you had.

We need to coach learners towards the proper process as they engage in reps of retrieval practice. Just like a spotter should only intervene with the minimum amount of assistance after you’ve made your most intense effort to lift the weight yourself, you should only peek back briefly at reference material after trying your best to remember.

Never, ever, EVER open up a worked example alongside a problem and transcribe the steps. If you do that, you’re letting your spotter lift the weight for you. It doesn’t matter how many times the weight moves up and down if you’re not the one lifting it. Your goal is to increase the amount of weight you can lift on your own, not to pile plates onto the bar and role-play as a powerlifter while your spotter lifts it for you.

TLDR: Our current spaced repetition system relies on the first-order signal: accuracy. In the future, we’ll incorporate higher-order signals: reference reliance (second-order) and timing (third-order).

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