I'm getting a little panicky because my progress graph has stagnated or gone south for the past couple of days.

How can I find out which items went from the "learned" column to the "forgotten" column? Should I care? Is an occasional dip in the progress graph a normal thing?

Yes, it's completely normal. It tends to happen when you let a big queue build up and then dig into it; your reward for your hard work is seeing your numbers drop temporarily. This is because you had some items that you had learned (by Skritter's definition) but you then forgot when you reviewed them. All this means is that they get scheduled for prompt reviews, as if they were new items.

So don't worry about it. Trust the scheduling algorithm to take care of everything.

James

"Trust the scheduling algorithm to take care of everything."

Do not question the machine! (haha, it's true though.)

Yeah, I used to agonize over whether to mark things as 1 (wrong), 2, 3, or 4 (too easy); I did something similar when I practiced with Anki. After a while I realized that it didn't matter so much, because the scheduling would eventually work everything out. That is, if I hit 1 when it should have been 3, the next time will almost certainly be a 3 or a 4. And if I hit 4 when it should have been 1, well, the next time will be delayed but it will almost certainly be a 1. That means that my mental energies can be focused on studying because I trust the scheduling algorithm. It's not that it's perfect; it's just that it's good enough, and in the long run it won't make any difference.

James

A friend of mine often laments dealing with certain teachers.

Teacher: "Why don't you know this word? I already taught it to you."

Friend: "You may have taught it, but that doesn't mean I learned it."

Skritter is the same way. I see tons of words in here that it says I "learned" that by my definition are still rusty. I am just now getting to the point where I ignore the learned/forgotten graphs. I am also slightly harsh with the grading buttons. I don't hesitate to change my grade in the writing section to something worse if I feel I couldn't really free write it. Of course the fact that I accidently screwed up my graphs so that even Skritter doesn't know my skill level anymore may be part of the reason for my care free attitude.

West316, some advice:

1. You need to use cloze deletion, with sentences you are familiar with. Helps to identify which word Skritter's looking for, helps you understand/retain/use it better.

2. Never press 2 (yellow), unless the item is less than 2 or 3 days old, /or/ you know it (green) but you'd like to see it sooner anyway. If you yellow a 2 week item, then all that will happen is two weeks into the future it'll appear again, and you still wont know it. Your reviews will pile up. Which leads to:

3. Be very harsh with what you don't know. It is better to keep pushing it back to the start with (red), and giving it another shot than pretending you know it, or your reviews building up. If it's not important enough for that (and/or you just can't get it), delete it.

If you follow this (and don't add new stuff for a while), I imagine things will sort themselves out (although things will get a little worse before they get better).

I completely agree with Byzanti about being harsh with what you don't know. I've had a couple of words follow me around for almost a year, I never really learn them cause I don't want to mark them red, but they never really disappear either. Counter intuitive as it is, the harsher you grade when you don't know, the faster it seems to disappear because you finally know it for real.

Having the progress bar stagnate is fine, if frustrating. I'm in the middle of month long period of not adding anything to get ready for several weeks of not skrittering. It helps get the review numbers down, but is not nearly as satisfying as adding stuff...

'Teacher: "Why don't you know this word? I already taught it to you."'

I can't stand it when teachers say things like this. Completely demotivates me. I know when I've forgotten something and I want some encouragement (a 慢慢来 or something) not a comment that makes me feel slow. I do like the comeback too.

I think most teachers, too, are guilty of liking novelty. Just about every teacher I've ever had doesn't do enough review (in my opinion).

@Doug I have a teacher (not for Chinese) who is notorious for saying that kind of thing. He expects that every single random thing he says in class should memorized for the next class. On the one hand this makes him an infuriating jerk. On the other hand, I think he is consciously trying to create a high-pressure environment to try to get some of the lazy students to kick it into gear. (It hasn't worked, BTW; they just complain about him behind his back.) I take it as a sign of his inexperience as a teacher and every chance I get I give him feedback on what I think works and what doesn't work.

When I was teaching math at a community college I tried to do what I thought was enough review. The problem was that the curriculum wasn't designed to allow it; there was simply too much material you had to cover in the span of one semester to do lots of review in class. The idea is that the students have to review outside of class while they study, which I thought was unrealistic in the case of my students, but that's another story...

James

I remember a very highly ranked comment about teaching math (not at a community college though) using spaced repetition:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=818157
(Just read the first comment.)

@nick that's awesome, I have already sent it to my ex-colleagues.

My Chinese language education has been spotty - a little of this and that. In the middle of that, I took a third year university class, one which used the Integrated Chinese level two text with the workbook. I had seen/sorta used the level one textbook but never the workbook.

Since I was an non-traditional student I wasn't graded and I didn't do the same work as the other students. However, when I did buckle down and do all the workbook exercises, I found two things: first, they were hard and second, I really learned stuff. The reason for both is that portions of the workbook exercises required using structures/grammar from previous chapters. Imagine that, having work that required referring to/ remembering past material! And it worked for me.

Not exactly SRS but that comment from the math teacher reminded me of this.

Honestly, I think you guys are over analyzing it. I have a different viewpoint when it comes to pedagogy. Most learning is done unconsciously -- you aren't even aware of how you are learning -- and bad teachers can teach you even more than good ones. Teachers are only one variable in the equation.

Spaced repetition is just another rehash of a simple concept: Hard Work. You can come up with a bunch of mathematical formulas to describe it, come up with a fancy algorithm, and give it different name, but that doesn't change the concept.

I worked as a wrestling coach over the winter and witnessed a pattern: the kids who showed up every day got better; those that slacked off got their butts kicked.

"That means that my mental energies can be focused on studying because I trust the scheduling algorithm."

This might work in the short run, but it also works as a crutch: you are unable to engage in metacognition when you outsource your thinking to an algorithm. Though I will admit, based on your mnemonic strategies, that's probably not your weakness.

It's true that one can get hung up on methods past the point of efficiency, and this is common in language learning. But it is even more common to not do enough thought and lose even more efficiency to using poor methods.

Using spaced repetition vs. not, for example: even simple forms of spaced repetition are dramatically better. So much so that someone doing spaced reviews will trounce someone who spends twice as much time and either doesn't review or reviews all material independently of how well it's known.

Most other study methods in use are likely much more similar in efficiency to each other, such that it doesn't make sense to flit from one to the other all the time in hopes of finding one that will make a big difference (instead, spend that search time on actual study). But a mindset of "just hard work" may miss the really big efficiency wins that come from doing stuff like spaced repetition, active recall, and avoidance of romanization.

@icecream "Spaced repetition is just another rehash of a simple concept: Hard Work."

No, it's much more than that. You can be hard-working and still waste lots of time. Imagine a teacher who insists on starting each class by reviewing every single thing that has been covered in the class so far. After a week or two, there would be no time left for new material because you would be spending so much time in review.

James

My implicit assumption was that people would make adjustments to their own internal algorithm by trial and error.

Even study methods that are looked down upon, like cramming, can be useful in certain situations to help solidify your understanding.

Also, when you reach a high level of understanding in any field you can make connections that other people can't possibly follow. I know when I talk about how I lift a lot of people laugh: I purposely break all the cardinal rules that are taught the first day of lifting. My body simply needs to be shocked to stimulate new growth.

@icecream When I used to use flashcards, I tried to use a kind of SRS called the Leitner system. It eventually broke down because of my lack of discipline; I was constantly finding exciting new things to add and wasn't reviewing old stuff enough.

The advantage with Skritter, Anki, etc. is that they keep you honest and let you know exactly how many things are overdue. After a while you learn that adding new material has a cost and you learn to pace yourself. That's something I never learned with flashcards.

As for breaking the rules of lifting, my capoeira teacher breaks rules all the time when he's doing moves. But he wants beginners to do the moves 100% correctly because he doesn't want anyone getting hurt.

James