Tanmay Vora (@tnvora) has two very nice sketchnotes and associated articles on learning.
Tanmay Vora’s associated articles are here:
- How Our Brain Learns
- Which is adapted from the article (by Belle Beth Cooper) 6 important things you should know about how your brain learns (#6 is Interleaved Learning)
- When Does Real Learning Happen?
I was especially struck by the bottom of the sketchnote that says We learn new information better when it’s INTERLEAVED.
This may be a new term to many and it is a fairly new idea in terms of educational research.
Scientific American had a nice article in August 2015 on this (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-interleaving-effect-mixing-it-up-boosts-learning/). The article talks about math quite a bit. There are numerous links to research and other articles. It contains many good points, including two reasons why interleaving strengthens memory associations.
Put simply, interleaved learning is when students practice in an ABCABCABC pattern rather than (in blocks) AAABBBCCC. As a teacher, I have long been an advocate of mixed practice. Interleaved learning is related to, but not equivalent to, Distributed Practice.
Give interleaved learning a try.