Spaced Interleaving

What is spaced interleaving, and why does it matter for education?

In our free guide for educators, we explore:

• What is spaced interleaving?
• What are the benefits of spaced interleaving?
• How can educators implement spaced interleaving?
• How can educators combine spaced interleaving with personalized learning?

Complete the form on this page to get your free copy of Spaced Interleaving: A How-To Guide for K-8 Educators, or keep reading to learn more.

What is Spaced Interleaving?

Spaced interleaving is an instructional approach that combines two key concepts: spaced learning and interleaved learning.

What are the benefits of Spaced Interleaving?

Spaced interleaving provides many benefits, including:

• Encouraging greater student engagement
• Promoting deeper levels of learning
• Discouraging rote memorization
• Reducing frustration and boredom
• Improving long-term retention
• Building cognitive flexibility
• Enhancing personalized learning

Spaced Learning vs. Massed Learning

What is the difference between spaced learning and massed learning?

What is Spaced Learning? What is Spaced Practice? 

Spaced learning is the practice of taking breaks and pauses between learning sessions.

Spaced practice is taking breaks between practice sessions. For example, practicing the piano for twenty minutes every night for three weeks would be an example of spaced practice.

In contrast, spending a single day in an intense, seven-hour practice session would be an example of massed practice.

Both approaches result in the same amount of time being spent on practice (in this example: 420 minutes, or 7 hours), but the benefits for learning can be quite different (see below).

Note that spaced learning does not require that the duration between learning is always the same; the spacing can vary.

What is Massed Learning? What is Massed Practice?

Massed learning is the practice of focusing learning into a single learning session without any breaks or pauses.

Massed practice is clumping practice into a single session, without breaks or pauses. “Cramming” the night before a test is an example of massed practice.

What are the benefits of Spaced Learning?

Numerous studies have shown that spaced learning tends to result in better retention, especially over time, so much so that this difference has earned its own name: the spacing effect.

Interleaved Learning vs. Blocked Learning

What is the difference between interleaved learning and blocked learning?

What is Interleaved Learning? What is Interleaved Practice?

Interleaved learning is the practice of working with multiple topics within a single learning session, which is sometimes also called mixed learning or shuffled learning.

Interleaved practice is practicing multiple skills within a single practice session. For example, a piano lesson where a student alternates between practicing several different chords, as well as proper finger placement and scales, would be an example of interleaved practice.

In contrast, blocked learning would be a piano lesson where the student only practiced the D Major chord, and no other chords or skills during the session.

Note that interleaved learning does not require that skills be practiced or mixed in a specific pattern; the pattern can be flexible based on instructional and learning needs and goals.

What is Blocked Learning? What is Blocked Practice?

Blocked learning is the practice of working with a single skill at a time. In blocked learning, students complete all the work with a single skill before moving on to the next skill. 

Blocked practice is practicing only a single skill at a time. For example, a math homework assignment with only subtraction problems would be an example of blocked practice.

What are the benefits of Interleaved Learning?

While blocked learning can produce an immediate improvement in a specific skill, studies have shown that these tend to be short-term gains. Interleaved learning may not produce an initial boost of the same magnitude as blocked learning, but its effects tend to be more long-lasting, resulting in greater long-term retention.

What is Spaced Interleaving?

When sessions of interleaved learning are spaced over time, the result is spaced interleaving.

In other words, spaced interleaving is the practice of interleaving multiple skills into each learning session, and spacing those learning sessions out over time.

What is an example of Spaced Interleaving?

If you’ve ever played a sport, you’ve probably practiced spaced interleaving!

For example, imagine a basketball summer camp. Each day, children will learn and practice multiple skills, often switching between different skills during a single practice session—for example, a child might practice dribbling up to the basket (Skill 1) and then shooting a basket (Skill 2) as a single activity.

This is interleaved practice because it is interleaving multiple skills into a single practice session.

Repetition is an important part of learning a new skill in sports, so students will also practice their skills over multiple days. For example, a child might practice dribbling a basketball on Monday, Wednesday, and again on Friday.

This is spaced practice because it is spacing out the practice of a skill over multiple practice sessions, with breaks in between. 

It’s important to note the breaks don’t have to be periods of “no learning.” Switching to practicing a different skill (such as passing the ball or footwork) is an effective way of spacing learning!

When these two things are combined—practice sessions that interleave multiple skills, with the practice of those skills spaced out over time—the result is spaced interleaving!

How can educators implement Spaced Interleaving?

While spaced interleaving can produce numerous benefits for students, its implementation can be quite challenging for educators if you’ve never implemented the technique before.

It is often easiest to break implementation down into two steps: first implementing spaced learning, and then adding interleaving learning to the spaced learning.

In our free guide, Spaced Interleaving: A How-To Guide for K-8 Educators, we provide detailed instructions and helpful tips for implementing spaced interleaving, choosing high-quality curricula for spaced interleaving, and deciding when not to use spaced interleaving.

Complete the form at the top of this page to get your free copy today.

Combining Spaced Interleaving with Personalized Learning

One way to get even more benefits from spaced interleaving is through personalized learning: tailoring learning to each student’s strengths, needs, goals, and interests.

Personalized learning can take many forms, such as content, pacing, time, feedback, and scaffolds. Each of these can be personalized within the context of spaced interleaving.

Because of the complexity of personalizing spaced interleaving for each student’s unique needs, many educators turn to adaptive technology. One example is SuccessMaker®, a continuously adaptive personalized learning program that incorporates a spaced interleaving model for instruction and practice to accelerate student growth.

In fact, SuccessMaker has been proven effective for all students by independent research!

Ready to implement personalized spaced interleaving for all your students? Explore the SuccessMaker offerings:

• SuccessMaker Reading for K-8 – Aligned to the Science of Reading! Targets phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, grammar, and spelling
• SuccessMaker Math for K-8 – Aligned to NCTM’s strands: Number Sense and Operations; Patterns, Algebra, & Functions; Geometry; Measurement; Data Analysis & Probability
• SuccessMaker: Foundations of High School Math – For students who do not have the prerequisite skills needed for success in early high school math classes like Algebra 1, Geometry, or Integrated Mathematics I