Beast Mode Study III: The Roar Power of Interleaving

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INTERLEAVING

Interleaving is the art of moving from one topic to another in a set block of study time.
The word broken down describes inserting additional pages (or leaves,) into a book.
While it may seem counterintuitive to move away from one subject while you’re in the thick of it, it’s less about moving away from a subject and more about connecting it with other subjects. It’s about finding the commonalities as well as the differences and using those revelations as bridge builders. Actually, continuing with the “bridge” analogy, it’s a way of connecting worlds. For those who are into Norse mythology or the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s like the Bifrost or Rainbow Bridge that allows Asgardians like Thor to travel to different realms. Using the interleaving method essentially opens up your world and by making connections, expands your understanding. Research into this method is particularly favourable towards this being effective for the subjects that ask for problem-solving.
Cognitive psychologists that have studied the effects of interleaving feel that the method improves the brain’s ability to differentiate between concepts. They believe that interleaving helps to strengthen memory associations.
It is harder at first that blocked practise and study but, as we’ve spoken about in past episodes, the short-term pain leads to longer term gains. If you haven’t listened to our episode on ‘Desirable Difficulties’ please go back and check that out. It’s the podcast episode with the bear in the image.
As part of the interleaving process, it is important to remain conscious to those links and not forget to find the connections. The recommendation is to vary the order that the subjects are studied. This helps the mind to avoid going into cruise control. It keeps the mind actively learning.

I’ve used physical workouts as an analogy for study or “mental workouts” before because that’s the world I come from being an educator for health and fitness certifications, and it works in this example as well. So, when we work out our muscles, we are using main muscles in any given, isotonic exercise such as, let’s say, biceps curls, that’s an easy one to imagine. So we perform the action by contracting our biceps or “curling” our biceps. Imagine a main topic that you are studying or focused on building as your biceps in this example. The thing is, without stabliser muscles and antagonist or opposing muscles, as well as healthy tendons and ligaments that assist with levers, that biceps curl would fail. And so we also train those supporter muscles and give them their own time and space. Then it all comes together.
To get the most out of learning a particular topic or subject, ensure that you are “training” on other subjects and then connecting those other subjects and topics.
A bonus is that you can go longer and stronger by not wearing yourself out on the one “exercise” or study lesson. If you’ve set aside a big chunk of studying time, perhaps as you draw close to exams and assessments, this becomes even more important. Share the load.

Of course the warning is that if you jump around too much, and don’t give enough time to each topic, then that can of course become detrimental.
What you could do is clearly define beforehand, how much time you will spend on each subject before moving to the next one. Make sure that you stand up, stretch, walk, have some water, a bit of chocolate, pet your cat whatever in spaces. Thinking back to the physical training relation, you have to take breaks between sets or blocks of sets (super-sets). There’s a technique that actually ties in perfectly with this. It’s called the Pomodoro
From the shape-shifting encyclopedia of the world wide web, Wikipedia, “The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. It uses a timer to break work into intervals, traditionally 25 minutes in length, separated by short breaks. Each interval is known as a pomodoro, from the Italian word for 'tomato', after the tomato-shaped kitchen timer Cirillo used as a university student.

The technique has been widely popularized by dozens of apps and websites providing timers and instructions.”

The idea behind the Pomodoro technique or any other technique that you want to self-design and prescribe, is to reduce the negative impact of interruptions that can come from within or without, on your ability to focus and allow you to get into a groove.
So to recap:
Interleaving is essentially mixing multiple subjects while you study and making connections.
The difference between "slow learners" and "quick studiers" often comes down to the way they study. Memorising is one thing but it doesn’t always improve understanding. Making connections is contextual learning. The beauty is that as human beings with our own experiences we can connect with subjects and topics in a way that they don’t have to feel separated from us. We can connect not just subject to subject as if they were external to us, but interleave subjects into our own life experiences.
I’ll leave you with a quote by American Paleopathologist, Arthur C. Aufderheide

“All knowledge is connected to all other knowledge. The fun is in making the connections.”