Spaced Repetition And Why It Is So Great For Learning!

Gustav Stål

Published: 2024-01-08

Spaced repetition (SR) is a scientifically proven learning technique that involves reviewing information at increasing intervals to improve long-term retention of the material. The principle behind it is relatively straightforward: instead of trying to learn or memorize something all at once and cramming it into your brain, spaced repetition leverages the psychological spacing effect, where learning is more efficient when spread out over time. Using spaced repetition, you can escape your bad study habits, and avoid pulling all-nighters the day before your exam!

How does spaced repetition work in practice?

In practice, you might review something you've learned after one day, then three days, then a week, then a month, and so on. Each interval is longer than the last, provided you keep remembering the information. This method is incredibly effective because it is believed to optimize the strengthening of memory traces in the brain, making recall easier and more reliable over time.

An illustration showing how reviewing at different intervals increases memory retention.

Spaced repetition allows your to not only memorize for your exams, but also to memorize for life, and the best part is that it can be used in practically any learning context, such as medicine, history, or even maths!

How is spaced repetition used on Retinello?

On Retinello, we have implemented our own variant of a spaced repetition algorithim which all of the learning on the platform is based on. It does not matter whether you're using our spaced repetition or interactive learning feature for memorizing your flashcards, our algorithim will determine the optimal time interval for the next review based on how well you graded yourself when reviewing, or based off of an underlying score provided by our AI-teacher when using the interactive learning feature.

An illustration of how flashcards are spaced in time on Retinello based on how hard they are.

Flashcards that you struggle with will appear sooner in your reviews, and ones that you master later. All in order to maximize the efficiency of your learning alongside our AI-empowered flashcard generation tools.

Want to try out Spaced Repetition? You can do so on Retinello for free!