The Secret to Better Learning That Most People Don’t Know

Our Better Health

Despite multiple studies showing the benefits, many people don’t know this learning trick.

Mixing up your learning can lead to massive gains, a new study of academic performance reveals.

For years now ‘interleaving’ has been a secret largely confined to researchers.

Interleaving means practising or learning different skills in quick succession.

When interleaving, tennis players might practice forehands, backhands and volleys altogether.

Interleaving for musicians could mean practising scales, arpeggios and chords all in the same session.

It’s quite a different method to how people normally learn.

Tennis players typically focus on forehands for a session and musicians on scales for a session.

The benefits have been shown in studies of motor skills:

“…college baseball players practiced hitting three types of pitches (e.g. curve ball) that were either blocked by type or systematically interleaved.
During a  subsequent test in which the three types of pitches were interleaved (as in an…

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