Secrets of Interleaved Practice | How Learning Works
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 มิ.ย. 2024
- Can rearranging the order in which you solve problems accelerate your learning? You bet. This is a breakdown of the idea of interleaving (as opposed to blocked practice), with a couple of tips for using interleaving more effectively.
00:00 Introduction
00:22 Defining blocked practice
01:03 Defining interleaved practice
01:46 The logic behind blocked practice: collecting skills
02:30 Interleaved practice spaces out your practice (which offers one advantage)
03:37 Interleaved practice helps us distinguish things
04:11 Interleaved practice focuses on the right skill
05:02 Time for a test
06:10 Findings from a study on interleaving math homework
07:13 When introducing new topics, start off with blocked practice
07:36 Interleaved practice is not task-switching
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References
For a more detailed take, I recommend checking out:
Pan, S. C. (2015). The interleaving effect: mixing it up boosts learning. Sci Am, 313(2) (currently available here: www.researchgate.net/profile/...)
For advice on interleaving in math specifically, see here: pdf.retrievalpractice.org/Inte...
The study I mentioned comparing blocked to interleaved math homework problems is below. The numbers I took were from a 30-day delayed test. Delayed tests are where you often see the largest gains for interleaved practice.
Rohrer, D., Dedrick, R. F., & Stershic, S. (2015). Interleaved practice improves mathematics learning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 107(3), 900. (currently available here: files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED...)
On the idea “blocking first”:
Sorensen, L. J., & Woltz, D. J. (2016). Blocking as a friend of induction in verbal category learning. Memory & cognition, 44(7), 1000-1013.
The photo of Kelvin Herrera was taken from wikipedia and can be found here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelvin_...
The photo of the wren:
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...
The photo of the sparrow:
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...
Bird cartoon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
I've been doing this wrong for years lol. Thank you for clarifying the difference between multi-tasking and interweaving
Plz plz explain me toooo , diff btw interleaving and multi tasking
Okay the bird example got me. Looking at it that way, it really shows the vast difference between blocked and interleaved practice in terms of actually working the mind to be able to solve problems. Also especially loved the distinction at approx 4:20 of what the actual skill you’re working on is. I’m going to start looking at my skills in this way now. For example, in language learning, the skill I’m working on would be learning this particular set of vocabulary, but the real skill is being able to communicate, and without resistance. It adds such a deeper level of connection and meaning to the work you’re doing. I love all of your videos, but this one particularly was super impactful for me. Thank you!
So happy to hear you got something out of it!
I feel the same way about language learning - communication is the highest priority, with a lot of other things (correct word choice, correct grammar, excellent pronunciation) being nice-to-haves.
Thank you especially for clearing up those two issues at the end, regarding how to start and overinterleaving! I'd been wondering about those.
You should make more videos like this. Your explanation in this video is perfect.
I heckin love Mr Keep. Keep up the great work, sir!!
I am doing interleaved practice with books, I know it's weird but I made a randomizer that gives me a book of my shelf that I haven't finished, and they have as much probability of a appearing as they have remaining pages, so it's still random but I get the books that I need to read, I'm not finishing any books because of it which is funny but I just started so that's why, but I did this before knowing what interleaved practice is, I read each book for an hour so that they are all equally the same amount of reading so that its also not biased in that sense, this helps me to not get bored of the books, and makes me easily relate them to each other, I'm literally parallel reading mathematics, language learning, anatomy of the human eye, self help, college guide and tales with teachings.
Hey keep posting this kind of videos you are a knowledgeable man❤❤❤
AAAAAAA you should have continued more!!!! I was just caught in this multitask trap! If you didnt warn i would do just that, thinking that the increased difficulty of opposite tasks would make me better.
Thank you, it is helpful!
Thank you so much.
I feel so validated after watching this video. The reason why I disliked "learning" in school so much: Blocked practicing + task switching (6-8 different subjects a day).
Thank you very much for all the work you put into this.
Well task switching is more like doing math for ten minutes then history for ten minutes then back to math for ten minutes again...in school you usually aren't quickly jumping from one thing to the next
The visuals here were just amazing, i loved the rainbow
Amazing video.
For example: if someone is learning a skill that builds up on a previous chapter. How do you go on to chapter 2 and 3 without completing or getting the full info of chapter 1. Because chapter one builds up on chapter 2, 3 and so on. Kindly explain this type of situation on how to use interleaving in this type of situation. Thank you
If the skills build up like that, it's probably not a great situation to apply interleaving. Interleaving is best for category learning, motor skills acquisition, and mathematics/problem-solving learning (varying problem types).
@@benjaminkeep thank you for the prompt response.
Thank you
Enjoyed and benefited from the video. I recommend that barcode is a better representation than rainbow. Great work!
Again had an aha moment! It seems I didn’t fully understand interleaving as opposed to task switching….now this makes sense.I assumed interleaving was just a ploy to get in spaced repetition but to be fair it didn’t make that much sense seeing the amount of space they gave it in the book Make It Stick and others…
Again you point out that interleaving more closely replicates how you are going to use it in real situations…again solving the theory and practical learning problem…think they call it transference.
Now All I need to do to apply it to the topics I’m interested in which may take some creativity but suppose that’s the point no effort = little learning?
The order of the factors indeed affect the result.
I am really, like, reallyyyy liking your videos. Damn great job!
And... I have a question: How i do interleaved study by myself? I always thought that interleaved study was to switch subjects in time to time, like 2 hour studying math than 2 hours studying biology. I undestand now that the key is to switch between problems of the same subjects, because the way I am doing is basic block studying with spaced repetition. But how I impliment interleaved study by myself? Like, how I will mix up problems in a order that I don't know if I am the onde doing that? If I decide by myself to do 1 problem of linear algebra, 2 of inequations and then 1 of geometry, is that interleaved? Even if i know what the problem I am going to work next?
edit: I forgot to say that I am studying to do a test that has all the subjects of the highschool. And I want to do interleaved study almost every day, not just with tests, because i have just 1 test/month
Sorry if I writed somethings wrong or just very bad, english is not my main language.
Anyway, really thanks for the video! Really opened my mind!
Hello. LOve your work. Please, about switching topics, what are the recommendations? 30 minutes each topic? Or should I stay at the same topic but with differents approaches? Tks a lot
I enjoyed it
Hello sir, at the outset, I want to thank you for the great effort that you provide, as well as for the pure science and for presenting it in a smooth and easy way for application on the ground. And if you allow me, I want to ask a question: - I am studying medicine and I have an exam about 25 days from now, and this exam includes multiple choices as well as short answers. and this exam consists of 4 huge topics (It consists of four major blocks(digestive system care and surgery, cardiac and respiratory system care, skeletal system and joint care, and endocrine and kidney care):-
And I confuse about how to study it
Example:-
1- study every block separately but do the interleave inside that block ( e,g study GIT block and interleave the subject like acute pancreatitis then colorectal cancer etc…
2- or study 2 blocks at same time.
3- or what is your suggestion i trust in you very well 🖤.
Note :- i am so confused that will help my alot.
Note2:- keep going 🖤
Appreciate the kind words.
One important question is: "how does the test present test questions?" Do you solve them by block or are the topics all mixed up? If they're mixed up on the test, ideally you would face the same kind of experience during practice (taking a practice test with questions mixed up). If they're blocked on the test, then interleaving probably becomes less important. Ideally, you would be answering questions like the questions you might see on the test, rather than just reviewing the material by re-reading your notes and the like.
If you don't have access to practice test questions (ChatGPT might be able to give you something, I don't know), I would study using a mixture of free recall, creating self-explanations, and active re-reading (once you've pulled stuff out of your head, go back to your materials to fill in the gaps; rinse and repeat). You could study a topic for an hour, then another, then another, like that. But you're probably pretty used to that configuration. I would recommend finding the threads that cross topics. For instance, all of the topics involve care. What about just focusing on the different kinds of care there is? Or what about focusing on interactions between the various systems? You want to find new ways of seeing relationships. Good luck!
@@benjaminkeep thank you sir 🖤
It seems best to start with block practice, then interleave practice, then repeat after you have leveled up
Hey Ben, great channel I have been watching nonstop(i know i should not be lol)
I practice basketball and have recently incorporated more intentional interleaved practice, but I did have a question
So if I were practicing a specific move(going between the legs) from a spot on the floor, but changing the type of shot i take(for example taking a jump shot one time and then taking a layup) count as interleaving?
Or would it be more like practicing a between the legs move one time then moving to a different move like a behind the back?
Sorry if this was confusing!
That's a really clear and interesting example.
I think both could be considered interleaving, but the second example (practicing between the legs, then behind the back) is a "cleaner" example. It also might depend on how dependent that first move is (to get around a defender) to the second move (the type of shot). If, say, you do the first move, then take three steps, then shoot, those three steps are breaking up the relationship between the movements. Certainly good to mix it up, but if I had to guess it wouldn't be as helpful as if how you do the first move depends on the second move, if that makes sense.
That being said, I would recommend doing both!
@@benjaminkeep awesome thanks!!
I just have one more question!
If I watch videos on concepts in basketball such as certain defensive or offensive principles, should i use techniques like free recall?
It’s confusing for me just because those things are intangible unlike physical skills such as shooting or dribbling.
You could use free recall, but better to actually practice the application. Maybe analyze games using these principles. Or apply these principles to a game that you're playing.
I read about this in a book called make it stick they also talked about priming mental modelling and varied practice please also make a video on varied practice as i was not able to clearly understand that pls do make a video on this topic
Great question and great topic for a video. I talk about it a little bit here: th-cam.com/video/Iw_94RLrBC8/w-d-xo.html, but I should definitely do a more in depth one.
1:40 So It's like guitar hero on legend mode when you dont know what notes are coming and you have to be SUPER LASER FOCUSED AND REACTIVE (i already feel tired just by thinking) as opposed to being chilled cause youre going to practice the same song, the exact same way over and over. One is a regular and the is a roguelike (or fear and hunger).
I forgot about this and is wild. I think i would still be nervous to train in such a chaotic way so i would do a 2 to 4 months experiment and with half being normal and other half interleaved to see if i can handle it.
Hellooo, thank u so much for this video and I hope you’re doing well. I have some questions. First, let me provide some context: Anatomy professors at my university split the topic in certain parts of the body and then split it again based on the different tissues (e.g., first 2 weeks it’s about the head, it’s subdivided in subsections and we start each section with its bones, follow by its muscles and finally their vein, arteries and nerves (VAN)), so, when interleaving, should I take one part of the body and alternate the order in which I practice the anatomy of the tissues (e.g., let’s suppose today I decided to study the head, specifically the eyes, so I did bones-muscles-VAN of the eyes, might not wrap it up in one sitting, so I will move on without completing it, and tmrw I pick up the cheeks, so I change the order and now I do muscles-VAN-bones and so on) or should I alternate them with the same section next time I revise the content? So, one day I study one body section and the next day another, and when I finish all sections of the target body part, I revise each section again without a specific order and altering the order of the tissues.
Second question: I find the way it's taught at my university a bit hard to follow because there is so much content, and by the time you are learning the muscles of the thorax, I may not remember the arteries or even the muscles of the face. So how can I space properly, in a way the content doesn’t come out as overwhelming when reversing it and that I don’t fall behind?
Third question: would it be interleaving if I applied different study techniques to the same topic each time I revised it?
Thanks in advance
@Ben, this (blocked practise) reminds me to of weight working out compared to real life applications or in comparison to sports / versatile activities
as it doesn't seem very efficient in connecting bridges of motion.
forward to deliberate practise, i would think the difference ought be to practise purposely in separation, but also the transitions, or am i understanding the latter fragmentary ?
Yes - that is indeed one of the drawbacks, that blocking doesn't involve the right skills that more real-life applications involve. A clear example of this is in the math research on interleaving - look for Rohrer as an author - the blocked practice doesn't give you practice at distinguishing between different kinds of problems (and their solutions) which is an important skill on, say, math tests b/c you don't necessarily know what problem will come next.
There are different ways of working on complex tasks. You can work on parts separately and then bring them together; you can practice the whole task while differentially focusing attention; and you can practice modified versions of the whole task where you make certain parts simpler or easier, then slowly build up the complexity. What is best seems to depend on the nature of the task. There's a chapter in Motor Learning and Control: Concepts and Applications that has a good discussion of this. When it's easy to separate parts and parts don't depend on each other as much, it's better to break it up (e.g., handwriting - you can practice letters separately and the letter you wrote before doesn't have that much of an influence on the next letter). When it's hard to separate parts and/or the parts influence each other a lot, a more "whole-oriented" approach is generally better (e.g., a basketball jump shot - the coordination of the jump with the shooting movement is a really important part of the skill).
@@benjaminkeep another question that emerges, despite finding said author and also from another video a suggested article Memory and metamemory considerations in the metacognition, bjork 1994, which sources for scientific literature do you embrace and name useful ?
for me it would be iterations of libgen, sci hub, the university catalogue, but sometimes that doesn't help.
and in regards of learning how to learn, and other psychological (related) concepts, which sources other than on your website would you know of ?
e.g. i have not studied psychology, but find myself reading it with increasing interest, and thinking of my start in reading philosophy, i remember wandering about, for the first years, not knowing how to combine concepts in depth.
Gratitude
Splendid.
Jee demande ce que Kubrick aurait fait de l'IS Generative ...
AMAZING VIDEO!
Quick question: task switching is bad. What if you switch tasks but only after a set amount of time?
Such as studying programming for one hour, taking a break, then moving on to another subject, like math. Is that also bad? I ask because that's how I have it set-up right now, but I'm starting to believe that it could be more beneficial to do one subject per day, and dedicate the rest of the time to actual practice, such as making a program, for example. What are your thoughts on this? I'd love to know because I genuinely need help haha.
One last question: what do you consider to be the most effective distribution of time between study and practice in a day? Would it be something like 3/4 of the time allocated for that day should be for practice, the other 1/4 for study? Or something like 50/50?
Thank you for these videos. You have no idea how much it helps someone like me who's learning by themselves.
No, doing programming for one hour then taking a break and moving onto another subject is perfectly fine. That would not be task-switching - in fact, I would call that quite beneficial. It spaces out your learning in each individual subject. When I think of task-switching I think of something like 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there. Or trying to do multiple tasks at once.
The ratio of study to practice really depends on the nature of what you are learning. If you're learning to trick-ride bicycles you're going to spend a LOT of time practicing tricks and quite a bit less time studying other people's tricks. If you're learning history, you're probably going to spend a lot of time "studying" and not much time "practicing" (of course, you might consider reading primary sources and writing and arguing to be "practicing" the profession of history - after all, that's what professional historians primarily do; but I'm speaking here of wanting to understand a historical time period from an amateurs perspective).
The important part is not the ratio. It's the back-and-forth of studying and practice. Your practice can help you study more effectively (e.g., you have a much deeper grasp of concept X, so that means concept Y, which builds on concept X, is easier to understand) and your study makes your practice more effective (maybe you realize the mistakes you made in practice, etc.).
@@benjaminkeep That's such an interesting reply. I was dead-set on placing a ratio, but now you're making me think about this. Thank you for replying!
I use space repetition and combine all of my learning together in one block - would it be better to separate the study times then for different tasks? Or is it more of practicing one subject i.e. my throwing skills, aiming skills, etc. that I should interweave different methods at the same time? Because I think as it is separating my learned materials into separate categories would hinder one of my favorite parts about it - which is making new connections between past things I've learned. But if it is scientifically proven to be more beneficial I would revise my approach.
So for example I have three lectures im studying for which are all math/problem solving for the most part. If i create a random exercise generator which picks e random exercise everytime im finished with one (round 15 to 30 min for one) would this be taskswitching?
07:58 , so for language learning, would it be better to do interleaving with something like some grammar, some vocabulary, some reading (repeat)?
You might wanna mix them together
mine learning system is ....start with curiosity and questioning topics like what it is and how it works and answered with imagination , now i understand better so i take notes using apply to real world using imgination , later analyse it well and add relation and mind maps , judge it evualate , all happens in a flow , now i used active recall by closing notes and spaced revision. i used to imagine vividly to recall it effortlessly without stresses out ....any suggestion ...for facts also i used to relate something to better remember like association and imagination , i am away from mnenmics which is good for exam but not for interviews its take time to encode
What is the best way to change the kind of information i interleave? Lets say i have an interleaved session about three new fruits i learned apple, pear and banana. Should i do 3 questions on apples and then think to myself "i've done three questions about apples. Now it is time for pears" or how does that work?
How do you think this applies to observational drawing?
Draw different human poses from different angles, or draw different subjects in different situations from different angles?
That's a good question. Two other ideas to look into that would relate to this situation would be "contextual variation" and the research on "contrasting cases"
Consider what you are learning from each example. If you draw the same pose from different angles, the practice emphasizes how the angle affects things. If you are drawing different poses from the same angle, that practice emphasizes how the pose affects things. I would probably do a little of both before moving onto the more challenging practice of different poses from different angles. Then move on to different subjects in different situations from different angles.
This is a bit of guesswork on my part though. I'd have to talk to some artists and think about the skills involved.
This goes back to op's example with the blocked math study being beneficial when first learning but interleaving being better later when the goal is not to be good in some very specific domain but in problem solving in general. If your goal is just to get good at drawing whats in front of you rather than have a specific skill for expressing the beauty of the human body, then yes, you might practice drawing different subjects under different context. In that case you stand a good chance at being able to compare and contrast different methods of rendering rough textures vs smooth textures, how to depict translucency in a subject using only pencil, how certain surfaces respond to overcast sky, etc. You can gain all that studying the human body but it might not occur to you if you think you have to study the body a certain way and it becomes a habit..like focusing on gesture and technical aspects of rendering round forms realistically.
Don't know what art instruction is looking like these days, but some people used to get you to study these things with still life painting when you have a group of subjects clustered together on the table...Apple, grapes, ceramic vase, gold plate, etc.
Adopt interleaved practice instead of blocked practice to enhance learning efficiency 0:04
Practice various problem types randomly during study sessions to improve memory retention and problem-solving skills 1:03
Space out learning sessions on the same topics to avoid forgetting how to solve certain types of problems 2:56
Focus on discerning fine details between learning topics to better distinguish between them 3:40
Employ interleaved practice in appropriate contexts, ensuring initial familiarity with the subject matter before mixing topics 7:08
Avoid task switching as it hinders learning, unlike effective interleaved practice 8:12
In interleave practice how long should a task be ?
Maybe this is two questions: how long should the practice session as a whole be and how long should the tasks inside the practice session be.
First, the easy one: the practice session as a whole should probably be somewhere between 20 minutes to an hour or so. I don't really have research here backing me up, but a lot of the literature focuses on relatively short interventions. And, at some point, fatigue kicks in. But it also depends on how long each task is.
The harder one: the tasks within a practice session shouldn't take too long. I'm thinking five minutes or so here. Again, this is in line with the existing research in terms of their protocols, but there's not a "five minutes and no longer!" study out there, AFAIK.
A longer, more involved task probably just isn't suitable for interleaving. Say you're building a robot and that takes a half hour. By the time you move on to a building something different, it's not clear that you will remember the key contrast as you interleave. Having the contextual variation is important, but that has its own value.
When diving into a new topic it can often be difficult to apply interleaving and elaboration because they require some level of *planning*. I added elaboration because it requires a direction or goal with what you are learning.
Yes you can choose and modify a goal, but how much time is that wasting as a self learner? I wonder what are effective adaptive measures of self learnings.
I notice this with my own learning. I to understand complexity theory and network theory for the purpose of applying it to the study of states (concepts in political theory and other social sciences). Complexity theory and network theory are higher level mathematical concepts. Idk I’m just lost. My learning isn’t as effective because I don’t know exactly what I want to learn/ why. I barely understand math and have never learned state theory , so it’s hard to know what to do.
This is a perfect opportunity to shift your immediate goals so you can pursue your long-term ones. Maybe that means going back to more fundamental math stuff so that you can apply it to social science. I would look for courses in basic discrete math first.
If you aren't familiar with Complexity Explorer from the Santa Fe Institute, check it out: www.santafe.edu/engage/learn/complexity-explorer. They can better guide on fundamental math that you need for topics in complexity.
Where's that line between interleaving and task switching? Lets say i practice major scales on guitar. And than i practice minor scales. Looks like interleaving. But than i practice chords. Is it task switching already?
I think another factor is that "block practice" carried to the extreme is the type of "mastery learning" where you break everything down into quanta and students are not supposed to advance to a new concept until they have "displayed mastery" of the skill they are on. An additional problem with this is that it is deadly, deadly boring. If a person is bringing a lot of intrinsic motivation, this may not be an issue, but if you are, say, trying to tutor a room full of kids who did not do well on a state assessment and who are being forced into a remedial session, honing in on a single "skill gap" and grinding through it until they display "mastery" is just miserable for everyone--it's honestly adversarial. However, so many people in K-12 continue to swear that this is what is meant by "data-driven instruction". The new new hotness on top of this is "brain breaks", which is where you switch out of academic topics entirely for a period of time and then go back into the grind. And I'm sure that's more effective than pure grind, but it still seems to me to trying to shore up a problem you don't need to have in the first place.
I could go on about this for days. Thanks for the video and the references. it's a great starting point. We have a whole generation of teachers and administrators who are treat the mastery model as gospel, even though it certainly doesn't match their own experiences with learning.
I found that with chess puzzles!
Question: So for example, when I study Maths, do I do question 1 of chapter 1, and then go to a random chapter, let's say chapter 5 q1 and then go back to chapter 1 q2? Is that how it works?
Well, I would assume that you wouldn't have the necessary background information to answer a question from chapter five. In the ideal case, problems would be presented randomly (e.g., you wouldn't know which kind of problem would be presented next). In mathematics, interleaving is probably more useful for instructors than for students. In other areas, though (practicing basketball shots, for instance), learners might take advantage)
The interleaving in math link in the description doesn't seem to work 😕
I just tried it again and worked: pdf.retrievalpractice.org/InterleavingGuide.pdf
You can go to retrievalpractice.org and find it there, too. Sorry for the delay in getting back to you.
@@benjaminkeep works now, thanks :)
I am doing law. I have 8 subjects . I guess I need to study 2 subjects per day. Kindly correct me if I am wrong .
Interleaved sounds similar to "nuances" in language.