How might spaced repetition memory systems intervene when the student struggles with material?

The typical Spaced repetition memory system does two things: it shortens the interval until the next presentation, and (usually) it asks the student to retry the prompt in the same session (SRS retry mechanism).

Sana Labs reintroduces the article which originally presented the prompt’s material, either through suggestion (“maybe you’d like to reread this?”) or by simply presenting the article as a task in the review session (“you’re struggling with material from this article.”)

Because the Mnemonic medium ties the prompts tightly with a source text, it may have some extra opportunities here: it can potentially excerpt or return readers to a specific portion of a source article.

Other possibilities:

• inject variations of the material to reinforce it more strongly
  • Duolingo might do this? I can’t tell.
• present material authored on a per-prompt basis intended for intervention
• facilitate asking others for help
• provide cues (potentially adaptively) to moderate difficulty
  • to read: Fiechter, J. L., & Benjamin, A. S. (2019). Techniques for scaffolding retrieval practice: The costs and benefits of adaptive versus diminishing cues. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 26(5), 1666–1674. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-019-01617-6

But, critically: Choice of intervention in a spaced repetition memory system must depend on reason for failure.

Literature

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• Butler, A. C., Godbole, N., & Marsh, E. J. (2013). Explanation feedback is better than correct answer feedback for promoting transfer of learning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 105,290–298. http://dx.doi.org/10 .1037/a0031026
• McDaniel, M. A., Howard, D. C., & Einstein, G. O. (2009). The read- recite-review study strategy: Effective and portable. Psychological Sci- ence, 20, 516–522. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02325.x
• McDaniel, M. A., & Little, J. L. (in press). Multiple-choice and short- answer quizzing on equal footing in the classroom: Potential indirect effects of testing. In J. Dunlosky & K. Rawson (Eds.), Handbook of cognition and education. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
• Pan, S. C., Gopal, A., & Rickard, T. C. (2015). Testing with feedback yields potent, but piecewise, learning of history and biology facts. Journal of Educational Psychology, 108, 563–575. http://dx.doi.org/10 .1037/edu0000074
• Pan, S. C., & Rickard, T. C. (2017). Does retrieval practice enhance learning and transfer relative to restudy for term-definition facts? Jour- nal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 23, 278–292. http://dx.doi .org/10.1037/xap0000124
• van Eersel, G. G., Verkoeijen, P. P., Povilenaite, M., & Rikers, R. (2016). The testing effect and far transfer: The role of exposure to key infor- mation. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1977. http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/ fpsyg.2016.01977