Question

Why do students resist interleaved practice? Why is it successful? Do you use interleaved practice while learning? If you have not, should you try it? Have you done this within this course? If so, how have you done this?

Answer 1

Students resist interleaved practice as Interleaving is a process where students mix, or interleave, multiple subjects or topics while they study in order to improve their learning. Blocked practice, on the other hand, involves studying one topic very thoroughly before moving to another topic. Fear of the unknown Some students resist learning because they are afraid. Students like doing what they already know. They hold on to beliefs that have served them well, especially those passed on from parents.

interleaved practice is successful:

because Interleaving has been shown to be more effective than blocked practice for developing the skills of categorization and problem solving; interleaving also leads to better long-term retention and improved ability to transfer learned knowledge.

use interleaved practice while learning:

Bjork explains that when we mix up our study materials, we start to notice both the similarities and differences among the things we're learning, and this can give us a better and deeper understanding of the material. Another possible reason interleaving is effective is that it makes learning more difficult.

yes, ofcourse, we should give it a try.

we have done this. there are 4 ways to do this:

1. Make sure the skills you interleave are somehow related.

When you’re using interleaving as a learning strategy, it’s important to make sure the skills you’re interleaving are related in some way. For instance, if you were learning to play tennis, you wouldn’t practise your backhands, followed by your serves, followed by English literature, because the last skill is completely unrelated to the first two.

2. Mix in old material with new material.

If you’re studying for a big exam, don’t focus on learning the material in the exact same order it was initially presented to you; mix it up and study old materials along with the newer stuff. Just because your history lessons started with the Russian Dictatorship and ended with the Civil Rights Movement doesn’t mean you should study it in the same order.

3. Use interleaving together with other learning strategies.

To get the most out of interleaving, you should use it in conjunction with other effective learning strategies such as repeated retrieval practice, practice testing and even studying in different locations.

4. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t see immediate results.

One thing to keep in mind is that although interleaving will be more effective in the long term, your initial results seem somewhat disappointing because you’ve made things more difficult and are having to work harder to understand the different concepts you’ve learned.