Efficient Reinforcement Finetuning via Adaptive Curriculum Learning

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Shi, Taiwei, Wu, Yiyang, Song, Linxin, Zhou, Tianyi, Zhao, Jieyu
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Shi, Taiwei
Wu, Yiyang
Song, Linxin
Zhou, Tianyi
Zhao, Jieyu
author_facet Shi, Taiwei
Wu, Yiyang
Song, Linxin
Zhou, Tianyi
Zhao, Jieyu
contents Reinforcement finetuning (RFT) has shown great potential for enhancing the mathematical reasoning capabilities of large language models (LLMs), but it is often sample- and compute-inefficient, requiring extensive training. In this work, we introduce AdaRFT (Adaptive Curriculum Reinforcement Finetuning), a method that significantly improves both the efficiency and final accuracy of RFT through adaptive curriculum learning. AdaRFT dynamically adjusts the difficulty of training problems based on the model's recent reward signals, ensuring that the model consistently trains on tasks that are challenging but solvable. This adaptive sampling strategy accelerates learning by maintaining an optimal difficulty range, avoiding wasted computation on problems that are too easy or too hard. AdaRFT requires only a lightweight extension to standard RFT algorithms like Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO), without modifying the reward function or model architecture. Experiments on competition-level math datasets demonstrate that AdaRFT significantly improves both training efficiency and reasoning performance. We evaluate AdaRFT across multiple data distributions and model sizes, showing that it reduces training time by up to 2x and improves accuracy by a considerable margin, offering a more scalable and effective RFT framework.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_05520
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Efficient Reinforcement Finetuning via Adaptive Curriculum Learning
Shi, Taiwei
Wu, Yiyang
Song, Linxin
Zhou, Tianyi
Zhao, Jieyu
Machine Learning
Computation and Language
Reinforcement finetuning (RFT) has shown great potential for enhancing the mathematical reasoning capabilities of large language models (LLMs), but it is often sample- and compute-inefficient, requiring extensive training. In this work, we introduce AdaRFT (Adaptive Curriculum Reinforcement Finetuning), a method that significantly improves both the efficiency and final accuracy of RFT through adaptive curriculum learning. AdaRFT dynamically adjusts the difficulty of training problems based on the model's recent reward signals, ensuring that the model consistently trains on tasks that are challenging but solvable. This adaptive sampling strategy accelerates learning by maintaining an optimal difficulty range, avoiding wasted computation on problems that are too easy or too hard. AdaRFT requires only a lightweight extension to standard RFT algorithms like Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO), without modifying the reward function or model architecture. Experiments on competition-level math datasets demonstrate that AdaRFT significantly improves both training efficiency and reasoning performance. We evaluate AdaRFT across multiple data distributions and model sizes, showing that it reduces training time by up to 2x and improves accuracy by a considerable margin, offering a more scalable and effective RFT framework.
title Efficient Reinforcement Finetuning via Adaptive Curriculum Learning
topic Machine Learning
Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.05520