The Pedagogy of Interleaving
We will spend 10 minutes to complete the activities in this section.
What is it?
Typically, math has been taught in units or 'blocks'. "Blocking involves practicing one skill at a time before the next (for example, “skill A” before “skill B” and so on, forming the pattern “AAABBBCCC”), in interleaving one mixes, or interleaves, practice on several related skills together (forming for example the pattern “ABCABCABC”)." Pan, S (2015). This can be done with all topics as you see in the image on the right, or you can space out one particular topic/big idea.
Why do it?
"When we distribute or interleave concepts and space practice over time, this forces our brains to work harder to retrieve the information and ultimately builds our retrieval strength. By waiting to come back to a concept just before it feels like it is fully forgotten, we are giving our brains exercise to retrieve those memories and build a stronger neural pathway to that information." Pearce, K. (2018)
Hermann Ebbinghaus (January 24, 1850 – February 26, 1909) was a German psychologist who performed a study to show how information can be forgotten over time. This was deemed as 'the forgetting curve'. The graph on the right shows a decline in memory retention over time without an intervention to retrieve it.
The 'spacing effect' is one such intervention that helps to improve memory retention. When on interleaves material, topics are spread out and can be revisited more frequently over time.
As you can see, Hermann Ebbinghaus was a pioneer and this is not a new theory!
Activity:
Some math concepts are naturally revisited throughout a course (i.e. number sense, algebra, etc.). Let's brainstorm ways that you might already be and/or ways that you could interleave topics/concepts in your math courses!
Click here to add your thoughts.