Interleaving

Think about how most people learn, or, more aptly, attempt to learn. They cram as much information into their brain as possible. People try to learn content in a chunk or one piece at a time before trying to move on to the next topic or subject.

It turns out, that might not be the best strategy for learning. Instead, people should try a strategy of interleaving which is also a computer term. So instead of spending one hour learning one thing, mix in a range of skills and learn a little of each related skill rather than one skill at a time.

For example, when learning to play baseball, many people learn by spending an hour on bunting. Instead, they should spend a little time on bunting, a little time on judging fair or fall balls while standing in the batter’s box and a little time catching.

This creates a more realistic level of difficulty and has a cumulative impact on learning. This is because the person is learning the skills in combination with related skills. They are placed in the broader context of playing the game of baseball.

So, as indicated in the article over at Wired, instead of making an appreciable leap forward with your one new skill after a session of focused practice, interleaving forces you to make nearly imperceptible steps forward with many skills. But over time, the sum of these small steps is much greater than the sum of the leaps you would have taken if you’d spent the same amount of time mastering each skill in its turn.

Successful interleaving allows you to “seat” each skill among the others. When information is studied so that it can be interpreted in relation to other things in memory, learning is much more powerful, according to a researcher quoted in the Wired article.

Of course, you can’t study totally unrelated skills. Like catching a baseball, kicking a soccer ball and baking a cake. All the small skills you interleave must be related in some way.

To me, this is why video game-based learning can be so effective. In most video games, you are learning or practicing doing more than one task at a time. Think, on the other hand, about elearning where you are typically learning one topic at a time.

Source:
Everything You Thought You Knew About Learning Is Wrong