Supporting Spaced Practice

Below are various means of supporting spaced practice. You can build some of these assets and interactive opportunities into your courses and you can share these ideas with students so that they have a means of building concrete examples into their own study sessions.

Customizable Tools to Support Spaced Practice

This tool has been designed to be customizable by faculty, and it can be embedded directly into your LMS content. For further information on how to utilize this tool in your LMS see either the Weekly-study-schedule-table page for an embeddable schedule.

Weekly Study Schedule Table

This fillable table can be used to model spaced practice for your students. Customize the table with your students’ class schedule or a sample schedule for their program, then add spaced blocks of study time.

Tips for Using the Weekly Study Schedule Table

• Begin by incorporating your students’ actual course schedule, if possible. If your students have multiple course blocks, choose one to use an exemplar.
• Schedule study blocks of time for your course, aiming for the first review session within 24 hours of your class, and subsequent sessions spaced 2-3 days apart.
• Post the table to your course during the early weeks of the semester to model for students the importance of a study schedule and how they could set up their own schedule. The embedded table, modeled above, can be added to a week’s Introduction or Overview page. The standalone table can be added as its own content page so that students can print or screenshot the schedule, if desired.
• Recommend specific units or topics to ensure that students review both current and previous content. Suggest two different topics for each study session to encourage interleaving (discussed in the next module).

EdTech Tools to Support Spaced Practice

There are many EdTech tools that can support you in embedding spaced practice into the learning experiences you create. In addition, making students aware of some of the simpler tools below can also support them in building strategies to support more effective independent learning.

Using Spaced Practice Outside the Digital Space

To support students in building their own tool box of study strategies, encourage students to engage in the some of the following activities as they are preparing for your assessments.

Tips to Support Spaced Practice

The following are some quick tips that you can use when you are building your learning experiences to embed interleaving directly into the learning.

1. At the start of the course engage in a collaborative activity with the class to co-create a recommended review and study schedule. This will help students to plan their time throughout the semester, and support those with organization or time management challenges.
2. Provide opportunities for students to revisit previous course topics. A class can begin with a review or ungraded assessment of the previously taught content. Discussion boards can be used to reflect upon or expand on topics. Homework activities can be provided for later practice and reflection.
3. Integrate spaced practice throughout your course. Divide lessons into smaller chunks of content, released over multiple days. Provide small homework activities that are spaced out throughout the week.
4. In addition to unit assessments, provide cumulative, formative assessments that require students to revisit content from earlier in the course.
5. The amount of time between study sessions is less important than the spacing itself. The goal is to provide as many sessions as possible while leaving enough time between sessions for recall to be challenging, but not impossible.

Checking Your Knowledge

References

Photography on this page used with permission from the Durham College Online Photo Database.

Carpenter, S.K., & Agarwal, P.K. (2020). How to use spaced retrieval practice to boost learning. RetrievalPractice.org. http://pdf.retrievalpractice.org/SpacingGuide.pdf

Dunlosky, J. (2013). Strengthening the Student Toolbox: Study Strategies to Boost Learning. American Educator, 37(3), 12–21. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1021069.pdf

Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K.A., Marsh, E.J., Nathan, M.J., & Willingham, D.T. (2013). Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques: Promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4-58. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100612453266

Karpicke, J. D., & O’Day, G. M. (in press). Elements of effective learning. In M. J. Kahana & A. D. Wagner (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Human Memory, Volume II: Applications. Oxford University Press. https://learninglab.psych.purdue.edu/downloads/inpress_Karpicke_ODay_Oxford_Handbook.pdf

Rohrer, D., & Pashler, H. (2007). Increasing retention without increasing study time. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16(4), 183-186. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8721.2007.00500.x

The Learning Scientists. (n.d.). Spaced practice. The Learning Scientists. https://www.learningscientists.org/spaced-practice

Weinstein, Y., Madan, C.R. & Sumeracki, M.A. (2018). Teaching the science of learning. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 3(2). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-017-0087-y

Weinstein Y., & Smith, M. (2016, July 21). Learn how to study using… spaced practice. The Learning Scientists. https://www.learningscientists.org/blog/2016/7/21-1

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