Interleaving: Blocking Feels Better, Works Worse

2026-05-20 · ~9 min · tags: practice, transfer, motor learning

Practicing one skill at a time in a tidy block is the most popular way to study, teach, and train — and one of the most reliable ways to underperform on the test that actually matters. A survey of why mixed, harder-feeling practice schedules produce learning that blocked practice does not.

Spacing Out: A Field Guide to the Spacing Effect

2026-03-02 · ~11 min · tags: memory, spaced repetition, forgetting

Cramming produces confident, fluent, and short-lived memories. Spacing produces the opposite: effortful, uncertain, durable. An overview of the spacing effect, why it is one of the most replicated findings in memory research, and why almost nobody uses it on purpose.

The Generation Effect: Answers You Produce Beat Answers You Read

2026-01-14 · ~7 min · tags: memory, testing effect, retrieval practice

Generating an answer yourself — even a wrong one — leaves a stronger memory trace than being handed the correct answer outright. Why struggling to retrieve is not a sign that studying is going badly, and why re-reading is close to the least effective way to learn something.