Interleaving#
See also: effective-learning-strategies
Like spaced-practice, interleaving is a scheduling technique shown to increase learning. The distinction between interleaving and spaced-practice can be blurry.
Traditional scheduling as students attempting many versions of the same problem in a given session (aka blocking).
Interleaving schedules sequences of different ideas or problems types in a given session.
Multiple ways to apply interleaving#
Problem type - mathematics#
e.g. have students calculate volume of different shapes, or solving graph or slope problems.
By doing this students gain experience at both
- Applying the method, and
- Selecting the right method to apply.
Discrimination, inductive learning#
e.g. art - matching painters to their respective painters.
Allowing comparison between exemplars of different categories.
Study and test opportunities#
Rather than work on a sequence of problems, work on problem and then view a worked example.
Advice for students#
- Don't interleave different subjects
- Switch between ideas during a study session. Don't study one idea for too long.
- Go back over the ideas again in different orders to strengthen your understanding.
- Make links between different ideas as you switch between them.
- Don't switch too often, or spend too little time on one idea
- Interleaving wil feel harder than studying the same thing for a long time - but it is helpful
References#
Rohrer, D. (2012). Interleaving Helps Students Distinguish among Similar Concepts. Educational Psychology Review, 24(3), 355--367. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-012-9201-3
Rohrer, D., Dedrick, R. F., & Burgess, K. (2014). The benefit of interleaved mathematics practice is not limited to superficially similar kinds of problems. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 21(5), 1323--1330. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-014-0588-3 teaching-mathematics
Weinstein, Y., Madan, C. R., & Sumeracki, M. A. (2018). Teaching the science of learning. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 3(1), 2. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-017-0087-y