Tag Archive for: building strong study skills series

Drew M. Hodis
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Building Strong Study Skills Series: Interleaved Studying

Building Strong Study Skill Series: Interleaved Studying. Students studying with a tutor.

Note: This series details how to study smarter, not harder, to help students succeed in their academics. All information in this series draws upon principles from psychological research on learning and memory.

How do you break up your studying when reviewing several different subjects? Do you study one subject for an hour and then switch to the next? Do you study for one subject on one day and another subject on a different day? This method is called blocked practice.

Now that we’ve gotten the worst study techniques out of the way, we will discuss effective study techniques. Today we talk about interleaved studying. Interleaving involves alternating between two or more subjects in a single study session. You can use interleaving for academics, music, and art!

Benefits of Interleaving

Compared to the blocked practice, you can retain information better with interleaving, acquire skills more effectively, and improve your abilities. These phenomena are part of the interleaving effect.

How to Interleave

To interleave your assigned readings, you may alternate between reading your physics book and your math book. Similarly, to interleave piano practice, you may switch between perfecting your performance piece, working on your technique workbook, and learning theory. To interleave illustration practice, you may rotate between using pen and ink, watercolor, and acrylics.

Interleave Properly

Everyone is different, so you have to practice interleaving to find what works best for you! But here are some general guidelines:

  • Typically, interleaving works best when you study each topic  for about 15 minutes before switching to the next. But this number ranges from 10-30 minutes depending on the person and subject. And, interleaving various subjects may look different. For example, interleaving readings may work best when you spend 15 minutes on each, whereas interleaving math and physics problems may work best when you spend 10 minutes on each.
  • Interleaving works best if you alternate between similar subjects, not identical ones, but also ones that aren’t too different. For example, it is more useful to interleave, say, math and chemistry than math and history. You could even interleave chemistry practice problems in thermodynamics and electrochemistry.
  • Interleaving is usually best when alternating between 2-3 subjects, but not more than that.

Warning

Interleaving is challenging – especially at first. Many students give up because they think they learned less in interleaving practice than in their blocked practice. And they very well may have had less success when they were getting used to the new study skill. However, once students get the hang of interleaving, they are more likely to retain the material.

Summary

Although interleaving can be challenging for beginners, it is more effective for retaining material, mastering skills, and improving your abilities. Although interleaving is effective, it shouldn’t be your only study skill. It should be used in conjunction with other study techniques that will be detailed in coming installments of this series.

Keep up with our weekly Building Strong Study Skills series to learn the most effective study strategies and succeed in your academics. Schedule a session with one of our expert tutors today to receive all the information and guidance you need to gain a deeper understanding of your academics and perform better on your tests! Building effective study habits takes time, so the sooner you get help, the better prepared you will be by the time finals roll around.

Read Other Articles in The Building Strong Study Skills Series

Sources:

  • Terry, W.S. (2018). Learning and Memory: Basic Principles, Processes, and Procedures, Fifth Edition. New York, Routledge, a Taylor and Francis Group. ISBN 978-1-13-864591-2.
  • Rhodes, M.G., Cleary, A.M. and DeLosh, E.L. (2020). A Guide to Effective Studying and Learning: Practical Strategies from the Science of Learning. New York, Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-021447-0 (pbk)
by
Drew M. Hodis
,

Building Strong Study Skills Series: Study Habits You Should Knock Part II

Note: This series details how to study smarter, not harder, to help students succeed in their academics. All information in this series draws upon principles from psychological research on learning and memory.

Most school course curriculums do not teach students to develop study skills, which poses a great barrier to academic success. And in some cases, some students are taught study skills that either don’t work or are extraordinarily inefficient! Last week we detailed some of the worst study habits. Read on to understand three more of the least effective study habits.


Keywords

Effective studying involves gaining a deep understanding of the material, to the point where you could even teach the exact material that you were taught in class or in your texts. Keywords are only snippets of the information you are expected to know. Even if you understand all of your keywords really well – do you know why you’re learning these keywords? Why do they matter? How do they relate to the overall topic? How are the keywords connected to each other?


Writing Text Summaries

Summarizing your text is helpful in demonstrating that you are able to condense a large reading into a brief writing. However, it does not necessarily demonstrate a deep understanding of the material, nor does it help you master the material. Where it might help is connecting ideas – but there are more effective and efficient ways to connect ideas.


Making Flashcards (Often, But Not Always)

Flashcards seem to be the go-to study skill for many students. Perhaps the most helpful part of flashcard studying is the process of making them. But the process itself takes a long time and is often an inefficient use of study time. Even if you are the speediest flashcard maker, flashcards should not be used as a sole study technique.

Making and studying flashcards before a test typically does not help you gain a deeper understanding of the material nor does it effectively help you encode that material into your long-term memory beyond the date of your test. We will detail the proper use of flashcards later in this series.


Summary

Keywords and writing text summaries are ineffective and inefficient study habits. Although making flashcards may be useful at times, this study technique is often misused.

Keep up with our weekly Building Strong Study Skills series to learn the most effective study strategies and succeed in your academics. Schedule a session with one of our expert tutors today to receive all the information and guidance you need to gain a deeper understanding of your academics and perform better on your tests! Building effective study habits takes time, so the sooner you get help, the better prepared you will be by the time finals roll around.

Read Other Articles in The Building Strong Study Skills Series

Sources:

  • Terry, W.S. (2018). Learning and Memory: Basic Principles, Processes, and Procedures, Fifth Edition. New York, Routledge, a Taylor and Francis Group. ISBN 978-1-13-864591-2.
  • Rhodes, M.G., Cleary, A.M. and DeLosh, E.L. (2020). A Guide to Effective Studying and Learning: Practical Strategies from the Science of Learning. New York, Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-021447-0 (pbk).
by
Drew M. Hodis
,

Building Strong Study Skills Series: Study Habits You Should Knock Part I

Note: This series details how to study smarter, not harder, to help students succeed in their academics. All information in this series draws upon principles from psychological research on learning and memory.

Do you or your student study hard but still underperform on tests? Before you can begin studying smarter, you must first understand what you’re doing wrong. Today we begin with understanding some study habits that provide little to no benefit.

Rote Memorization

Have you ever found yourself repeatedly reading something to get it into your long-term memory? Effective studying involves developing a deep understanding of concepts and relating them to other knowledge you possess. Rote memorization does not promote understanding. Even worse, the information acquired through rote repetition typically does not stay in long term memory for very long.

Highlighting

Highlighting is another go-to study skill for many students. Highlighting is not very effective, if at all, in helping students encode information into their long term memory. And re-reading your highlights is a passive study technique with very little benefits, if any.

Re-Reading

Always aim to read the texts assigned in class just once. Reading is time consuming and re-reading should be avoided at all costs! Obviously, if you didn’t take good notes on a section or are having trouble wrapping your head around a particular concept, then re-reading may be necessary and helpful. But if you take great notes and interact with the text while reading the first time around, you will have the opportunity to explore better study techniques in that time spared from re-reading your text. We will go over how to actively read texts and take notes later in our series.

Summary

Rote memorization, highlighting, and re-reading are very ineffective study habits and should be the very first study habits you knock.

Stay up to date with our weekly Building Strong Study Skills series to learn the most effective study strategies and succeed in your academics. Schedule a session with one of our expert tutors today to receive all the information and guidance you need to gain a deeper understanding of your academics and perform better on your tests! Building effective study habits takes time, so the sooner you get help, the better prepared you will be by the time finals roll around.

Read Other Articles in The Building Strong Study Skills Series

Sources:

  • Terry, W.S. (2018). Learning and Memory: Basic Principles, Processes, and Procedures, Fifth Edition. New York, Routledge, a Taylor and Francis Group. ISBN 978-1-13-864591-2.
  • Rhodes, M.G., Cleary, A.M. and DeLosh, E.L. (2020). A Guide to Effective Studying and Learning: Practical Strategies from the Science of Learning. New York, Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-021447-0 (pbk).
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