What is Distributed or Spaced Practice?
Distributed practice - or Spacing - is a technique commonly used when learning material or studying for a test. It involves creating a schedule of study sessions of short duration. These should be used to practice the same material - not new material. Distributed practice can be contrasted to massed practice or cramming, where you work in fewer study sessions, but for longer periods of time.
Spacing is most beneficial when you:
- push yourself to recall something that you barely know yet
- practice retrieving information in different formats (visual, textual, and graphic)
- follow up immediately with feedback or self-checking for accurate encoding of information into your memory
- follow feedback with a deeper dive into course notes to understand what you still need to solidify
- practice retrieval in multiple episodes scattered throughout your daily and weekly study sessions to strengthen long-term bonds
Why it Matters
Our memory has limited capacity for processing information. You need to give your brain a break after going over material for an extensive period.
According to Ebbinghaus’ forgetting curve, without reviewing people lose about 50% of what they learned in 24 hours. Reviewing what you covered the day before interrupts this forgetting process.
Spacing helps with long-term retention of material, while cramming only creates short-term benefits. It might enough for a test the next day, but you will have to start over for finals or anything beyond that.
How It Works
Create a schedule for your study sessions, you can use your preferred calendar, as long as you can plan study sessions at least a few days in advance.
Space out the study sessions to focus on small but frequent intervals.
Identify which content needs more time and which ones you are already well versed in and assign appropriate time allotments. Harder content gets longer and more frequent sessions, more familiar content gets less but still adequate sessions.
Make adjustments as you go, but don’t let too many interruptions disturb your scheduled sessions. The more you are able to stick to your schedule the better you will learn the material, and the less likely you are to procrastinate.
