How can teachers supercharge their students’ learning to develop and remember knowledge?
Teachers have an incredible opportunity to revolutionise their classroom by harnessing the power of interleaving practice; to discriminate effectively, generalise knowledge, and help students to excel academically …
What’s your favourite fruit?
When I describe the theory of interleaving practice to teachers, I like to use the analogy of a ‘fruit salad’.
One can add chopped strawberries, apples, pieces of bananas, blueberries and pieces of melon to the bowl, and then mix them together. However, I wouldn’t add baked beans to the bowl!
Baked beans are still a ‘food’, but there are different ‘category’ of food.
This is useful when thinking about curriculum design (intent) and implementation. Teach students all the concepts, rules and facts about strawberries, apples, bananas, blueberries and melon, but hold back on the baked beans until you introduce sausages, baked potatoes, eggs and bacon.
