Dorothy: The Best Spaced Repetition Tool for Long-Term Learning
With Dorothy, you’ll only study something if you’re about to forget it. Let us tell you why.
Definition
What is Spaced Repetition Learning?
Spaced repetition is a research-backed learning method that improves your capacity to memorize, remember, and recall anything. Rather than “cramming” (repeating information frequently in a short amount of time), the spaced repetition approach requires you to study with an intentional and increasing gap of time between each repetition, causing you to use active recall.
Active recall is a learning principle that states that you are more likely to remember anything if you engage your memory during the learning process. Passively reviewing information by reading, watching, or listening has just a minor impact on learning and is far less efficient. Actively revisiting it by testing yourself on it, while learning, dramatically improves your odds of remembering it.
Evidence shows that you have the highest chance of remembering or learning something if you use active recall at intentional spaced intervals to study it. This is spaced repetition learning.
This claim is supported by scientific evidence. Simply read anything by Jeffrey Karpicke, or consider Hermann Ebbinghaus’ seminal “Über das Gedächtnis” or Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology. Alternatively, you may continue reading this page for a simple scientific explanation of how everything works.
Like our team at Dorothy, you probably have a love/hate relationship with your memory if you enjoy learning. “Why am I having trouble remembering the Spanish verb for ‘to bring’?” “Who wrote ‘Inspired’ again?” “What is the distinction between mutable and immutable in programming?”
Spaced repetition learning can help you if you frequently ask yourself these kinds of questions. Sadly, our brains do not operate like hard drives; we are unable to simply copy and paste information into our long-term memory. We must strive to make our minds work better.
Many of us have the same inquiries:
How can I ensure that the information I learn sticks in my mind?
How can I learn more effectively throughout my life?
How can I pick up a language more quickly?
How can I get the most out of the classes I enroll in?
The answer is simple:
There’s a tool for that.
Try Dorothy for yourself. Study effectively starting today!
HOW + WHY
How and why does spaced repetition work?
Over the past century, there have been many studies on spaced repetition. Each has produced the same outcome: lengthening the intervals between study times boosts accuracy at those study times.
This is why students all over the world continue to find flashcards to be a useful and popular learning tool. Making a deck of flashcards and using them to study at regular intervals over the course of the semester will increase your retention of material.
According to scientists, the key to why spaced repetition is effective is that the harder something is for you to remember, the more in-depth level of cognitive processing you’ll go through when evaluated. Your ability to think deeply will increase the likelihood that anything will stick in your long-term memory.
This means that the best time to review something is just as you’re about to forget it. That is when you’ll have the deepest cognitive challenge to recall.
We’ve all experienced situations where we already know the solution to a problem, but it takes us a while to retrieve it from memory. These are what we refer to as “tip of the tongue” moments.
Sadly, it is impossible for humans to predict when they are about to forget anything. This makes it extremely challenging for us to reach these moments on our own and makes it even harder to design a study program that tests our cognitive abilities.
That’s where computer programming comes in.
Programs for spaced repetition (SRS) are based on the flashcard approach to learning. They do, however, use far more sophisticated strategies than simply thinking, “Oh crap, I should be studying right now.”
An SRS program works with the user to create expanded interval algorithms based on their personal ability to learn. Basically, the program will give the user a question, prompt them to respond by employing active recall, and then inquire about how challenging it was to respond. The interval between tests increases as memory becomes simpler to recall.
Purpose
What is the purpose of spaced repetition?
Your memory will increase with spaced repetition. Being in charge of what you store in your long-term memory is a liberating and motivating idea. All kinds of information can be remembered via spaced repetition, but these are the most typical applications:
- Studying for tests
- Learning languages
- Learning and practicing new skills
- Retaining information from a course or book
- Improving your long-term memory
Spaced repetition is a tool that can be used in many fields that require fact learning, manipulation of principles or formulas, or the ability to perform various tasks.
PUT IT TO WORK
What is the best spaced repetition schedule?
A spaced repetition schedule that places the active recall just at the “tip of the tongue” moment—when we have to strive to remember the response but haven’t fully forgotten it—is the most effective.
This changes depending on who you ask and even the question. An optimal plan of spaced repetitions that is based on data that is specifically tailored to you and the material you’re attempting to learn.
The most effective plan for spaced repetitions is one that is regularly revised in response to feedback. The way that each question’s schedule is personalized based on the user, the question, the question’s past answers, and continuously updated algorithms sets Dorothy apart from other memorizing systems.
And the best part, it gets more and more accurate the more you use it!
How to apply spaced repetition to improve your studying
Spaced repetition can help students, professionals, and anybody else interested in learning to review and study more effectively.
You may be wondering “how can I use the technique of spaced repetition effectively?”
The conventional approach is to construct a set of flashcards, review them at regular intervals, pay close attention to how long and how difficult it was for you to remember each answer, and then make an educated judgment as to when you should study that same card again. You will get a little bit closer to determining your ideal spaced repetition plan with each new hypothesis.
That’s a lot of work.
You must not only complete all the required reading, but you must also devise your own system through trial and error.
One of the fundamental problems with spaced repetition has been how time-consuming and labor-intensive it is to design an effective system. Theoretically, all you need to do is employ a trustworthy algorithm to efficiently use the spaced repetition strategy. But you must keep using it. And unfortunately, the current spaced repetition software or apps available are not very user-friendly and didn’t seem to be designed with the user experience in mind.
We discovered that there was no app that was efficient and simple to use after utilizing a number of applications and experimenting with a lot of various ways to try and maintain a constant spaced repetition schedule. All of them were overly intricate, unattractive, or old.
That’s why we developed Dorothy.
WHY DOROTHY
What makes Dorothy the best memory improvement tool?
Dorothy is the best spaced repetition memory improvement tool for three main reasons:
- It has the most accurate spaced interval algorithms
- It never stops getting more accurate
- It’s actually easy to use!
With the help of our users, we created Dorothy. We found the absence of quality, cost-free learning software to be frustrating. From our conversations with users, we found other people share these sentiments.
Because of this, our efforts have mostly been divided into two areas: creating an effective system and improving its usability.
Everyone has experienced the sense of dread that comes with having to start studying. Or when we receive a push message reminding us of something we’ve been putting off, we feel a tiny bit guilty.
That’s why Dorothy has been designed to be simple, beautiful, sympathetic, and efficient.
There’s finally a spaced repetition tool that sends you reminders without invading your calendar, flooding your inbox, or shaming you for not spending time on the product.
Just by taking your quizzes, Dorothy develops a customized spaced repetition method for you and each individual question you are studying. Every piece of information we collect is instantly put into our own system to improve accuracy.
Our research shows that the average Dorothy user only needs to be asked a question 8 times in the first 100 days to keep the answer memorized for those 100 days. That amounts to just under 3 total minutes of “studying”!
The best part: you can achieve this efficiency too. All you have to do is get started.
Interested? Sign up today to begin studying less and remembering a heck of a lot more.