Interleaving for Learning

Interleaving for Learning
Student’s Name
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Block learning occurs when People will tend to acquire knowledge in blocks which involves the mastery of one thing at a time then proceeding to master the next. It involves the ability to focus on a practice after learning it. On the other hand, interleaving is a strategy which suggests the use of many skills at a time instead of spending a lot of time doing a single skill (Yan et al., 2016). Interleaving creates a sense of hardship, and it is not easy for people to notice the immediate effects of acquiring knowledge. Interleaving forces one to move forward using many skills but over time the total of the small steps is far better than the total one would have used to master one skill in its turn.
Interleaving which is powerful allows someone to connect one skill with another. When using interleaving one is supposed to consider that the mini skills he or she is combining are related in some way. When learning how to play tennis, it is not possible for me to learn backhands, followed by Literature, then followed by serves, because the activities look somehow unrelated. Interleaving can help me in studying Italian where rather than paying a lot of attention on the vocabulary only or even reading, I could also combine it with mini skills such as spending around 10 minutes to memorize the vocabulary, then spend at least another 10 minutes to read and write, I would spend another to practice on my pronunciation and then repeat the previous skills in a circular manner (Yan et al.

, 2016).
I can use interleaving learning strategy to improve my mastery of mathematics by the skill of mixing of new materials with the old materials. If I had learned about polynomials in the topic of Algebra in the past months and simplification of algebraic equations in the last few days, then I would mix both in my study session for results that are better and long term. Similarly, in Mathematics subject I can mix various materials, for example, while studying measures of variability, the mini skills will be the range, quartile deviation, mean deviation, variance and standard variation. If I had learned about the range on Monday and each other skill was taught on its own day, when doing my revision, I would mix all the new materials taught on that week for better understanding and results.
Interleaving skill can also help to improve the mastery of a skill when it is used together with various learning activities. To get the best in interleaving, I should use it in support of other studying strategies such as practicing the test and varying my study location. Studying in a single location is good if the information is required to be recalled in that same location. When someone varies his learning strategies, he or she will have an easier time in recalling he or she has learned no matter how time has passed. I can carry out my studies on the library in a specific floor, in the hostel room, in the arboretum or even on the playing ground. Interleaving and varying of the study location will help me master various skills such as chemistry skills, learning German language or even playing a guitar. Interleaving can help me learn more for example, instead of taking notes in class, it can be better to work for it after class because the more I work, the more I gain instead of mastering a concept by copying it from the chalkboard.

Reference
Yan, V. X., Bjork, E. L., & Bjork, R. A. (2016). On the difficulty of mending metacognitive illusions: A priori theories, fluency effects, and misattributions of the interleaving benefit. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 145(7), 918.