Intercalated learning

Study techniques are created with the aim of facilitating student learning through various methods and shortcuts that facilitate the processes of understanding, memorization and enhance student performance. One of these techniques, which enjoys great acceptance among teachers and students, is the technique of interleaved learning.

Interspersed learning is a productivity technique, which goes against the traditional ways we are used to follow when studying for an exam or acquiring new skills. Considering the importance of this resource for anyone who is studying, we will dedicate the following lines to understand the basic fundamentals of this technique and how it can be applied effectively to get the most out of it.

What does it consist of?

Interspersed learning is based on the so-called "interweaving effect", which defends the thesis that by studying more than one subject or skill at a time, knowledge is more easily and deeply grasped. This interlocking effect leads many people to learn two languages at the same time, to master more than one instrument in the same period of time, among many other examples. The ability and understanding of the subject studied, when it has a certain similarity, allows our brain to incorporate more than one specific content.

When practicing interleaved learning, it goes against the orthodox way of studying. If you think of an exam, where you are going to be evaluated on 4 topics, the logic of studying would be to go topic by topic in order, from 1 to 4. But interleaved learning urges us to study topics 1 and 2 at the same time and then 3 and 4, or why not, to study all 4 topics at the same time.

As you can see, it is about breaking the logical order and assuming multitasking, combining elements from different subjects and studying them alternatively. And it is likely that you will ask yourself what is the effectiveness of this technique, if in the end the study time will be the same and the content studied will be the same.

Effectiveness of the technique

Although it may seem strange that studying in an intercalated way is useful to fix the knowledge more easily, there are several studies based on neuroscience that explain why this way of studying is more effective than the classic linear study of subject by subject.

What happens is that when we study for an exam, following the topic-by-topic logic, we are not preparing ourselves for the reality of what an exam is. A normal exam, especially in higher education, integrates the general knowledge of the subject, it does not evaluate the partitioned knowledge. Studying in a linear way creates structures in our memory that are not the right ones either to take the exam or to achieve a certain comprehensive knowledge.

To understand the above, let's think of a d