Spacing learning: Improve retention and recall

- [Instructor] It turns out that if you really want to learn something, summer school and cramming for tests are both really bad ideas. A better course of action is providing retrieval opportunities over time. Spaced learning means teaching topic or skill A to learners, then moving to B, letting some time elapse, say a few hours or a few days, and then returning to topic A. The efficacy of spaced learning is the most researched finding of how humans learn. So, if you're looking for brain science to inform the training and teaching you create, make spacing a best practice. The research indicates that longer gaps between sessions, say three days, are more effective than shorter gaps, say one day. The rule of thumb is to let a little forgetting set in before you return to the subject or skill. Researchers call this desirable difficulty. Desirable because, while not fun for your learner, things difficult to learn stick better. So, why does spacing out information align with how our brains work? I'll give you three reasons. One, if you don't revisit information, that is, recall what you've learned, your brain will quickly forget it. Hermann Ebbinghaus discovered this in the 19th century. You've likely heard of his forgetting curve. Two, when you revisit information, you strengthen the neural pathway in the brain where it's stored. Three, spaced learning takes advantage of the sleep cycle. When you sleep, your brain replays what you learned in the day. It seeks patterns, looking for importance, and makes connections between pieces of information, which is why things seem clearer in the morning. Okay, now let's turn to how you can incorporate spaced learning in your training and teaching. Break longer sessions into shorter ones. For instance, instead of a six-hour instructor-led training, conduct two or even three smaller ones with a day in between. Reinforce learning in between sessions. After a class or a session, consider sending recap emails, videos, or configuring in-app notifications such as a chatbot that prompt learners to recall the key concepts you went over. Structure lessons so that older material is revisited regularly. This is particularly suited to the traditional educational settings. For instance, if you're a math teacher, start your session with review problems, one from last class, one from last week, one from a month ago. Interleave practice. I have a whole movie devoted to interleaving, but here's the gist. Instead of fully teaching topic A, then moving to B, then to C, and so on, partially teach topic A, move to B, then go back to A, then back to C. When you return to a topic, you employ spacing. Now, spacing your learning out will require a bit more work from you. For example, if you break a long instructor-led session into several smaller ones, you'll have more scheduling to do. If you reinforce learning between sessions, you'll have to create or configure the content that learners are to recall. Your effort will pay dividends, however. To sum up, spaced learning isn't about teaching more, it's about reinforcing learning strategically. Whether in corporate settings or traditional education, the key is to plan retrieval opportunities over time rather than cramming all at once.