Like a tie-dyed shirt: Mix it up with interleaving and boost learning

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I’m thrilled to share the research, teaching tips, and insights from cognitive scientist and educator, Dr. Veronica Yan, one of the world’s leading experts on interleaving.

What’s interleaving? It’s a teaching and studying strategy to challenge and improve learning by mixing things up: problem sets, flashcards, vocabulary words, different types of storytelling structures, etc.

It might sound complicated, but like all the research-based strategies I recommend: interleaving doesn’t require extra prep, class time, or grading. It’s a small adjustment that makes a big difference for student learning inside and outside the classroom.

Learn how to implement interleaving with teaching tips from Dr. Yan below, adapted from our new book, Smart Teaching Stronger Learning.

P.S. Scroll below for free resources from the book. And save the date! We’ve got an exciting event coming up on Thursday, August 14… 🤓

Like a tie-dyed shirt: Mix it up

As cognitive scientist Dr. Veronica Yan explains in Smart Teaching Stronger Learning: “The world comes at us interleaved. Prior to starting school, we typically encounter things mixed up, but once we enter school, things start to look different. We want students to develop conceptual understanding and skills that they can use in other parts of their lives, both in and out of the classroom. To really instill these skills with our learners, should they focus on just one thing at a time, or should they go back and forth between different concepts or skills?”

For example, students might traditionally study concepts in a biology course one at a time: prokaryotic cells, eukaryotic cells, cell membranes, diffusion, osmosis, and active transport. But concepts and skills on exams and in real life are like a tie-dyed t-shirt: all mixed up.

 
 

Interleaving facilitates learning how to distinguish between related and confusable concepts. And going back and forth between concepts helps to build deeper conceptual understanding.

Here are a few practical tips from Dr. Yan’s chapter:

  • Interleave and mix up existing homework or practice questions. Shuffle current and previous problems, not just what students are learning right now.

  • Draw explicit attention to contrasts and comparisons by using spaced retrieval practice by calling back to previously taught concepts. For example, “What have we already covered that this idea reminds you of?” and “What’s the difference between concept A and concept B?”

  • Keep it fresh: Frame interleaving as a positive and more interesting challenge to go back and forth between different types of questions, rather than doing the same thing over and over again.

  • Explain the purpose of interleaved practice to your students. Interleaving reveals to students the possible confusions they might have and it gives them the type of practice that better matches final exams and real life.

Learn about Dr. Veronica Yan

 
 

Dr. Veronica X. Yan (she/her) is an Associate Professor and Director of the Science of Learning and Memory Lab at The University of Texas at Austin.

Dr. Yan's research bridges social, cognitive, and educational psychology fields to explore how we can empower people to become motivated and effective self-regulated learners. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Dr. Yan is also a teacher! She teaches a learning and motivation course to pre-service teachers, and graduate courses on cognitive psychology, interleaving, and metacognition. Her own educational experience has spanned multiple countries, including primary and secondary school in Hong Kong, undergraduate education in England, and graduate school in the United States.

Dr. Yan is a consultant with the Texas Education Agency, and she leads professional development workshops around the world that integrate research findings with practical teaching strategies. She was recently featured on the Learning Science Podcast by Voovo. Follow Dr. Yan on Bluesky and LinkedIn, and check out her research on Google Scholar.

Dr. Yan’s recent publications:

 
 

Course adoption and book studies!

 
 

Written for K–12, higher ed, and beyond, Smart Teaching Stronger Learning is a practical and short book, written by cognitive scientists who are also teachers. As a teacher from Chicago shared with us, “Love the book so far! Very good simple strategies that don't seem difficult to implement!”

We are thrilled to share that teachers are adopting our book for undergrad and graduate courses, book groups, teaching centers, and professional development.

  • If you are interested in a bulk order discount for your school, email me at ask@retrievalpractice.org for more information.

  • If you want to create a semester-long course or a book study, each chapter includes two carefully selected additional readings (click here to download the list of articles). 10 chapters (only 10 pages each) + 2 journal articles per chapter = a semester-long course.

  • If you are developing discussion questions, slides, and/or resources for your course or book study, please let me know. The best resources come from our readers and I would love to share your creations.

  • The authors are here to support you! Located around the world, they are actively speaking at conferences and schools, sharing their knowledge with educators on Zoom, and forming research collaborations. Get in touch with the authors via our website (scroll down to author information, or email me if you’d like help). Don’t be shy; they’d love to hear from you.

Here’s an example of a course adoption: In one of contributing author Dr. Michelle Rivers’s college courses, students simply read a book chapter and shared a summary of what they learned. From Dr. Rivers: “It generated great discussion! Students loved the idea of concept mapping and many of them are going to try it in their own learning. We also talked about how some of the strategies will only work if they come from an understanding professor (e.g., sharing times when we have also failed during the learning process) — that the affective/motivational aspects of learning are very important, too.”

Don’t have time to read our book or not ready to purchase it? I totally get it. It’s been a long school year and I love free resources. Download our “cheat sheet” of one teaching tip per chapter and read the full book introduction online. You can also watch this Zoom recording of our book launch with the authors!

Want to read even more on the science of learning and use them in your courses? Check out my full list of recommended books and my reading challenge from a few years ago.