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Here’s how UC San Diego defines spaced practice:
Rather than intensively cramming right before the exam, a more effective strategy is to distribute your exam preparation over multiple sessions. This is known as spaced practice or distributed practice. By “spacing” learning activities out over time (for example, 1 to 2 hours every other day, or at least once per week, rather than a 12-hour marathon cramming session), you will be able to learn more information and retain it longer.
Spaced practice is often discussed in conjunction with two other studying/learning methods – retrieval practice and interleaving.
You can learn more about them at Does Anyone Use “Interleaving” When Teaching ELLs? If So, I’d Love To Hear What You Do and at The Best Resources For Learning About Retrieval Practice,
For right now, I’m just including resources on spaced practice that I’ve previously blogged about or have recently read, and will gradually add new ones to the list (I include posts related to all learners and ones specifically for ELLs):
How to Incorporate ‘Spaced Learning’ Into Your Lesson Plans is from Edutopia.
Spaced Practice in Practice is from A Classroom Of One’s Own.
WHAT IS THE SPACING EFFECT? is from Inner Drive.
A Better Way to Remember reports on a study that provides evidence that if you “cram,” most knowledge will be forgotten quickly, while if you “space” your learning, it will move into long-term memory. The experiments were done with mice, but it sounds like researchers are pretty confident it can be applied to humans, too:
While learning gains in mice that had undergone one hour of massed training were eliminated, those in mice that had undergone the same amount of training spaced out over a four hour period were unaffected….This final discovery suggests that proteins produced during training play a key role in the formation of long-term memories, providing for the first time a neurological explanation for the well-known benefits of spaced learning — as well as a great excuse to take more breaks.
Enhancing ESL Courses With Spaced Repetition: What Teachers and Learners Need to Know is from Bridge EDU.
5 easy & fun ways to use spaced repetition is from Mango Languages.
Spaced Practice and Second Language Vocabulary Learning
The Effects of Spaced Practice on Second Language Learning: A Meta‐Analysis
Spaced Practice: A teacher’s guide
Here’s how UC San Diego defines spaced practice: Rather than intensively cramming right before the exam, a more effective strategy is to distribute your exam preparation over multiple sessions. This is known as spaced practice or distributed practice. By “spacing” learning activities out over time (for example, 1 to 2 hours every other day, or at least best of the year, ESL Web, instruction Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…
