Why most people forget what they learn

Imagine this:

You decide to finally learn calculus, linear algebra, or classical mechanics. You register on a popular online platform, open up Chapter 1, and everything goes great for the few weeks. You’re grasping the concepts, nailing the problems in quizzes, it feels like you’re really knocking this out of the park...

Then life gets busy. You step away for ten days.

When you return, you open the next module, look at the equations, and realize you have barely any idea what you’re looking at. The concepts you "mastered" a week ago have almost completely vanished. It feels like you barely learned anything at all.

Frustrated, you either scroll backward to start over, or you close the tab and join the 73% of online learners who quit halfway.

Is this purely from lack of discipline on your part? Or were you never going to retain that information in the first place?

Here’s what really happened:

Most online courses are built like an assembly line. You learn in order of necessity, studying concepts and topics only enough to garner the understanding required for subsequent lessons. You often don’t know how each piece goes together or which concepts might be of higher importance later on. This structure may seem efficient, but it’s also rigid, linear, and largely incompatible with how the human brain actually retains information. To make STEM concepts stick more permanently, you need to understand the cognitive bottlenecks of self-directed learning.

Most online learning platforms mimic the traditional textbook model: you finish Chapter 1, pass a static quiz, and move to Chapter 2, never looking back. This design is outdated and it’s proven to be less effective at achieving a lasting understanding of the concepts you pour so much energy into learning.

Traditional design falls victim to two core issues:

1. The Forgetting Curve:

Formulated by psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus, this cognitive reality dictates that humans lose roughly 50% of new information within days, and up to 80% within a month, unless that knowledge is actively reviewed at calculated intervals.

The key to understanding The Forgetting Curve lies in Ebbinghaus’ findings tying stronger memories to prolonged retention. The more you utilize a given set of information over time, the more ingrained in your mind it will become.

To put this into perspective, think about the most complex password you’ve ever memorized. How many times did you need to reference the place you had written it down before it finally had staying power in your mind?

Most will find they’re able to have a password memorized within a week or two of typing it in regularly, even if it’s a reasonably complex password. The real issue is, once initially memorized, it’s still not far from forgotten if you stop using it for awhile.

For a complex password most will need to use it regularly for many weeks or even months before it has a long-term place in their memory. Advanced concepts like those found in STEM follow this same logic, requiring repetition to truly achieve prolonged knowledge retention.

2. Subject Siloing:

Math and other subjects don't exist in isolated tracks. Many online learning platforms quarantine different subjects in isolated categories, blurring the lines of prerequisite information and removing valuable context which gives the information greater significance to the student. Without understanding the context and motivation behind learning key topics, a student is far less likely to put effort toward retaining critical information.

To break out of this cycle, Consiliae takes a more refined approach. Instead of a linear path, our platform relies on a knowledge map where every concept is a node, and every line represents a prerequisite. In order to navigate this web without wasting time, Consiliae offers a free placement test. This test is designed to be short and adaptive in order to figure out what you already know across math and physics. There's no starting from scratch on what you've mastered and it’s easy to identify an ideal starting point to work toward your goals.

To ensure a deeper level of knowledge retention for students on Consiliae, we leverage the SM-2 Spaced Repetition Algorithm. As we touched on before, once you learn a concept, you must defend it against the Forgetting Curve. This is where the SM-2 algorithm comes in.

Instead of manual studying, which can often feel aimless or too generalized, SM-2 tracks your inputs during quick quizzes. Concepts you struggle with are brought back for review more often, while concepts you nail fade further out and reappear less often with each successful attempt. By prompting your brain to recall information right before it’s about to forget it, the memory is consolidated permanently into your long-term storage.

Stop fighting your own brain with rigid, assembly-line styled courses. If you’re ready to see how math and other subjects actually connect, and keep what you learn for good, come explore our knowledge map.

Take our free 15-minute diagnostic test and let’s figure out exactly where you stand, skip the stuff you already know, and build a learning path that actually sticks.

John, Cofounder