Effective Learning Strategies

What makes for good teaching, learning and Homework?

Keys to effective teaching, learning and homework:

1. Spaced Repetition. This has been emphasized with good results since the pioneering work that gave us Pimsleur method audio training… about 50 years ago.

2. Retrieval practice, or "repeated retrieval" — this is where "testing to teach" comes in, though often mis-applied. It is not "assessment" to measure anything; it is "retrieval" to reinforce neural pathways. And why immersive gaming and actual "live" practice with a new language — are so effective in terms of improving retention.

3. Use of "cognitive disfluency" -- making material 'sticky' by making it more difficult, not easier, to absorb, in ways that engage the brain and create new neural scaffolding.

4. Interleaving — a combination of the above, for the most part, the idea that rotating through different aspects of material works better than extended focus on a single aspect or learning approach.

So mixing up text book study, dialog review, word recognition and sentence composition is a great way to do this.