Presentation of concepts from Make It Stick by Brown, et al. This one focuses on mixing up practice by spacing out, interleaving, and varying.

1. bean bags

2. Two groups of college students were taught how
to find the volumes of four obscure geometric
solids (wedge, spheroid, spherical cone, and half
cone). One group then worked a set of practice
problems that were clustered by problem type
(practice four problems for computing the volume
of a wedge, then four problems for a spheroid,
etc.). The other group worked the same practice
problems, but the sequence was mixed rather
than clustered by type of problem.

3. result?
During practice, the students who worked the
problems in clusters averaged 89 percent
correct, compared to only 60 percent for those
who worked the problems in a mixed sequence.
But in the final test a week later, the students
who had practiced solving problems clustered
by type averaged only 20 percent correct, while
the students whose practice was interleaved
averaged 63 percent.

4. Photo by Benjamin Cruz from Pexels
Mix Your Practice
The importance of variety in practicing

6. The myth of massed practice

7. spaced repetition
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

8. interleaved practice
Photo by Karolina Grabowska from

9. typical practice
• master step 1
• go to step 2
• master step 2
• go to step 3
• master step 3

10. interleaved practice
• start step 1
• start step 2
• return to step 1
• start step 3
• return to step 2

11. Teachers dislike it because it feels sluggish. Students find
it confusing: they’re just starting to get a handle on new
material and don’t feel on top of it yet when they are
forced to switch. But the research shows unequivocally
that mastery and long-term retention are much better if
you interleave practice than if you mass it.
(Brown, et al. 2014)

12. varied
practice
Photo by Pixabay from Pexels

13. developing discrimination skills

14. Reflection is a form of practice

15. Mix your practice by …
•spacing out
•interleaving
•varying