Interleaving
You’ve no doubt seen the shocking amount of information we forget after training thanks to Ebbinghaus’s Curve of Forgetting. To combat the forgetting curve, a technique that I used to use as a prof and have recently come back to as an instructional designer is interleaving.
What is it?
Interleaving: basically weaving multiple subjects together (ABCABC) rather than blocking them for learners to review completely and move on (AABBCC). It’s an authentic way that we experience the world.
Check out this video for an overview:
Why use it?
Learners consider interleaving harder than blocked content, so why incorporate it in your design?
Better long-term retention
Better learned knowledge transfer
Improved ability to differentiate between concepts
Consider learning in terms of volleyball, you want to be prepared for a spike, pass, block or dig, so you can’t study spikes in isolation.
How to do it?
Introduce several topics at an introductory level in one module and then have learners move on to practicing or investigating these topics.
—Incorporate activities that integrate old and new concepts within a module.
—Give learners a choice in the way they demonstrate learning
—Use in conjunction with blocked practice to not overwhelm
Do you see an application for interleaving in your work? Have you used it in the past? If you have learned a language on the Duolingo app you certainly have. Share your experience. We’d love to hear from you!
References