Spaced Practise – Why is this important?
Spaced Practice – Why Is This Important?
In my last blog, I explored Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve (view this here). In summary, Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve is a concept developed by German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus in the late 19th century. He conducted experiments to understand how we forget information over time. Ebbinghaus found that when we learn something new, we tend to forget it rapidly at first, and then the rate of forgetting gradually slows down.
So, what is the best way to combat the forgetting curve and ensure akonga are retaining and understanding things they learn at school or, in my case, a specialist literacy lesson? In a nutshell, it’s spaced practice. I must admit, I wasn’t familiar with spaced practice until I attended Sharing Best Practice in Wellington and sat in on Jason Barkle’s breakout talk aimed at supporting year 7 and 8 students following the Science of Learning.
The concepts of the Forgetting Curve, Spaced Practice, and Cognitive Load Theory were all discussed, and why they link back together to ensure we as teachers understand how retention of information occurs (and why some students need more repetitions).
When you tie this in with the rules of Neuroplasticity, it makes for eye-opening insights into the Science of Learning! Now I don’t profess to be a scholar; however, I am driven and passionate about extending my own knowledge and skills. Therefore, here we are!
Spaced Practice can be defined as “Repeated encounters with to-be-learned material that are spaced out in time (as opposed to recurring back-to-back)” (Kang, 2016). These repeated encounters act as an effective way to foster long-lasting learning. Teachers who include spaced repetitions into existing teaching practices provide their students with great ways to foster gains in learning without requiring added resources (Kang, 2016).
What makes Spaced Practice so effective is the fact that it works by building neural connections or pathways in the brain. If we learn something and then revisit it repeatedly with enough time in between to rest the brain, we enhance our ability to reconstruct that information and make it more accessible the next time we may need it. (The Education Hub, 2016)
When we revisit learning material repeatedly over weeks and months with increasing levels of complexity, we can induce more effective retrieval practice. If we think about a Reading, Writing, and Spelling scope and sequence, this can provide a very effective way to incorporate spaced practice.
As we work through a scope and sequence, regular folding back to skills already learned is woven in with space in between. As the scope and sequence is followed through, it increases in complexity as more spelling generalisations are woven in and practiced. Affixing is added, compound words are formed, and regular review of material is placed carefully within.
In conclusion, as educators, integrating the principles of the Forgetting Curve, Spaced Practice, and Cognitive Load Theory into our teaching approaches provides a roadmap to understanding how information retention occurs. With the added layer of Neuroplasticity, it becomes evident that spaced practice is a powerful tool in shaping the neural landscapes of our students’ minds. So, let’s weave spaced practice into our educational tapestry, fostering enduring knowledge and skills with each well-timed repetition.
Kang, Sean. (2016). Spaced Repetition Promotes Efficient and Effective Learning: Policy Implications for Instruction. Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 3. 10.1177/2372732215624708.
The Education Hub (2023) Spaced Practice. Retrieved from https://theeducationhub.org.nz/spaced-practice/