Interleaving chat
Jonathan Firth's Memory & Metacognition Updates #5
Hello! And welcome to another weekly update on memory and metacognition.
I'm so glad that you joined – I love to share information about these topics, and about the science of learning in general. It's great to connect!
Memory in education
Memory is a huge focus of what I write about, and I was interested to read this quote by Teaching Toolkit's Ross Morrison McGill:
"besides mastering the classroom in terms of subject knowledge and behaviour management, memory is the number one thing all teachers need to know."
I agree; whether we focus on skills, facts or concept knowledge, memory is always playing a role. If we are going to teach in a way that learners retain and can use over the long-term, then it will surely be helpful for practitioners to understand how long-term memory works. My goal is to help with this.
Two major examples of techniques based on memory principles are the spacing effect and interleaving. I explain both of these, and how they link to metacognition, in this recent journal article. It's a very accessible paper, and I think it would be a great choice for a teaching & learning reading group. Reply to let me know if you need a pdf copy!
Interleaving chat with InnerDrive
I recently gave a talk on interleaving (see last week's newsletter for a link to the full talk). This sparked a few conversations via Twitter... and eventually led to the following informal chat with Sarah Cottingham and Bradley Busch.
You can see it on the InnerDrive Youtube channel here:
Discussing Interleaving with Jonathan Firth, Sarah Cottingham and Bradley Busch — www.youtube.com Inspired by Jonathan Firth's talk & report and Sarah Cottingham's Twitter thread about them, we hosted an informal Zoom call to discuss interleaving, one of ...
By the way – if you want to grab the spacing and interleaving guide that Brad mentions, it's still free on my website right here!
Recommended read
Last week I recommended a great research study about teaching spelling (click on 'Past Issues'), and I'd like to continue with a weekly recommendation as part of these newsletters.
This week: a really useful investigation of the spacing effect by Vanessa Foot-Seymour and colleagues:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1002/acp.3539
This research is important for two main reasons. Firstly, it's not just about memorising information, but about a transferable skill – young people's ability to judge whether websites are credible or not. Secondly, it was done on children over an educationally-relevant timescale (lessons once per day vs. once per week).
I hope you take a look. I'd be happy to pick up on the implications in a later newsletter, taking into account a follow-up study by the same research team.
Until then, take care – and thanks for being a part of this community!
Jonathan
p.s. if you are enjoying the bulletins, perhaps you would be kind enough to share it in Twitter or elsewhere?
Last week: On developing successful learners
Next week: The concept of memory
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