I’m a bit skeptical of what you claim because it is so different from my approach to becoming proficient at pieces mathematics: usually I will work through progressively more-complicated problems in excruciating detail. I don’t claim that this is the most efficient method, and it would be nice to find such an approach, just that memorization methods have usually lead to me agreeing with the mathematics, rather than really understanding it.
But maybe you are using Anki differently to how I expect. How exactly do you review cards? Do you look at a prompt until you can say verbatim what is on the card? Or if not verbatim what tolerance do you have for missing details/small mistakes?
If you use it for rote memorization, without grokking concepts deeply—then what you get is rote memorization. Think of memorizing capitals without learning anything else about states and nations.
But if you work hard to identify conceptual landmarks and add good questions to tie it all together (more like a high quality PowerPoint presentation), then it can be amazing and facilitate retention of rich intuitions for years. Think of memorizing major topographic landmarks on a map and a bit of history, so that you have something to relate capitals to in context.
Incidentally, rote-memorization cards are actually harder to review with Anki: the “glue” holding them in memory starts to fade after a month or so, so eventually the drift toward “ease hell” and otherwise become unpleasant to review.
I’m a bit skeptical of what you claim because it is so different from my approach to becoming proficient at pieces mathematics: usually I will work through progressively more-complicated problems in excruciating detail. I don’t claim that this is the most efficient method, and it would be nice to find such an approach, just that memorization methods have usually lead to me agreeing with the mathematics, rather than really understanding it.
But maybe you are using Anki differently to how I expect. How exactly do you review cards? Do you look at a prompt until you can say verbatim what is on the card? Or if not verbatim what tolerance do you have for missing details/small mistakes?
Anki’s value depends a lot on how you use it.
If you use it for rote memorization, without grokking concepts deeply—then what you get is rote memorization. Think of memorizing capitals without learning anything else about states and nations.
But if you work hard to identify conceptual landmarks and add good questions to tie it all together (more like a high quality PowerPoint presentation), then it can be amazing and facilitate retention of rich intuitions for years. Think of memorizing major topographic landmarks on a map and a bit of history, so that you have something to relate capitals to in context.
Incidentally, rote-memorization cards are actually harder to review with Anki: the “glue” holding them in memory starts to fade after a month or so, so eventually the drift toward “ease hell” and otherwise become unpleasant to review.
I went into detail on how I use Anki for math in this thread. Feel free to comment there with further questions.