If school’s purpose were to develop skills, we’d teach differently: Almost everywhere you look, you find examples of massed practice: colleges that offer concentration in a single subject with the promise of fast learning, continuing education seminars for professionals where training is condensed into a single weekend. Cramming for exams is a form of massed practice. It feels like a productive strategy, and it may get you through the next day’s midterm, but most of the material will be long forgotten by the time you sit down for the final. Spacing out your practice feels less productive for the very reason that some forgetting has set in and you’ve got to work harder to recall the concepts. … [But] the benefits of spacing out practice sessions are long established. …
I think the main function of schools is something other than learning, so I predict that "the majority of public schools in Arizona will not require students to utilize spaced repetition software at any point within the next 10 years."
It's my understanding that the majority of your quality pirate schools already interleave practice between swigging rum, burying treasure and forcing mutineers to walk the plank.
I teach math at a public high school. We have a practice that is sort of like this, called "spiral reviewing." A teacher who uses spiral reviewing a lot still uses an old-fashioned course sequence where topics are covered intensively, one at a time. But for a few minutes every day in class, and (sometimes) even on graded assessments, they have the students do problems on old topics. Over a school year, each topic gets circled back to maybe 5-10 times, after being covered intensively the first time.
Spiral reviewing is not stressed very much by administration, and there are no penalties or anything if you don't spiral. It's just mentioned every so often as a good idea, and most of the better teachers do it (at least in math, not sure about other departments).
So optimistically, this is halfway between massed and interleaved practice. If we see the benefit of spiraling, then an optimistic prediction is that practice will get more interleaved as time goes on. Pessimistically, it's a fad that will go away soon. Not sure which is more plausible.
I suspect those considerations drive mass practice as rarely as your personal example suggests.
[As for students being "rational" by cramming, the problem is the academic system that encourages it. Regarding whether it is individually rational, see The Hidden Meaning of “Memorization” among Exam Abolitionists— http://tinyurl.com/39oecbp .]
This is how I taught when I was still in academia. The students didn't terribly appreciate it, but I like to think they did learn more. I'm not sure this is nefarious on the parts of teachers/institutions, so much as momentum, tradition, and a lack of desire to innovate.
Non magnet public schools will make no changes. Test prep companies will adopt this. Some pirate schools will adopt this, but most will not. Learning is relative and if they produce more of it than public schools the market won't reward them for winning by a bigger margin.
My speculation would be that within five years, some elite school(s) will have incorporated interleaving practices. It won't be adopted for mass education for the (perhaps good) reason that it reduces motivation, which is a scarcer resource than time for most students.
I predict that neither public nor private schools will change their practices significantly. After all, almost no one actually cares about claimed results of research in teaching and education -- and why should they, when there is so very much nonsense in that field, effectively burying/hiding anything that might be of actual value? Instead, the relabeling, recycling, and rediscovery of old approaches, but treating them as if they were novel, will continue unabated. Expensive, large, and extravagant conferences on education and teaching will continue to be held, will be enjoyed by many as a reward for their otherwise dreary jobs, and will achieve little. Meanwhile, the greatest quantities of effective education will arise from variously the dedicated efforts of handfuls of parents, handfuls of good teachers, and handfuls of well-motivated students.
I think higher education is more or less modelled on the priesthood, and while the particular articles of faith are important, what is really being taught and assessed is an ability to conform and a dedication to maintaining the interests of the priesthood and associated institutions. At least that's my experience...
Then again you might be fine with most students just retaining level 2 but some having had the opportunity to be introduced to level 10 and choosing to study that further...
I suspect those considerations drive mass practice as rarely as your personal example suggests.
That's the thing that I was talking about last week.
Some say they're strong on the three Aaarrrs...whilst others maintain they just teach kids to parrot.
Pirate schools? Why aren't kids begging their parents to go there? ;)
I think the main function of schools is something other than learning, so I predict that "the majority of public schools in Arizona will not require students to utilize spaced repetition software at any point within the next 10 years."
http://predictionbook.com/p...
It's my understanding that the majority of your quality pirate schools already interleave practice between swigging rum, burying treasure and forcing mutineers to walk the plank.
I teach math at a public high school. We have a practice that is sort of like this, called "spiral reviewing." A teacher who uses spiral reviewing a lot still uses an old-fashioned course sequence where topics are covered intensively, one at a time. But for a few minutes every day in class, and (sometimes) even on graded assessments, they have the students do problems on old topics. Over a school year, each topic gets circled back to maybe 5-10 times, after being covered intensively the first time.
Spiral reviewing is not stressed very much by administration, and there are no penalties or anything if you don't spiral. It's just mentioned every so often as a good idea, and most of the better teachers do it (at least in math, not sure about other departments).
So optimistically, this is halfway between massed and interleaved practice. If we see the benefit of spiraling, then an optimistic prediction is that practice will get more interleaved as time goes on. Pessimistically, it's a fad that will go away soon. Not sure which is more plausible.
I suspect those considerations drive mass practice as rarely as your personal example suggests.
[As for students being "rational" by cramming, the problem is the academic system that encourages it. Regarding whether it is individually rational, see The Hidden Meaning of “Memorization” among Exam Abolitionists— http://tinyurl.com/39oecbp .]
This is how I taught when I was still in academia. The students didn't terribly appreciate it, but I like to think they did learn more. I'm not sure this is nefarious on the parts of teachers/institutions, so much as momentum, tradition, and a lack of desire to innovate.
Non magnet public schools will make no changes. Test prep companies will adopt this. Some pirate schools will adopt this, but most will not. Learning is relative and if they produce more of it than public schools the market won't reward them for winning by a bigger margin.
My speculation would be that within five years, some elite school(s) will have incorporated interleaving practices. It won't be adopted for mass education for the (perhaps good) reason that it reduces motivation, which is a scarcer resource than time for most students.
You have to define interleaving more clearly, as arch1 and I have said.
I predict that neither public nor private schools will change their practices significantly. After all, almost no one actually cares about claimed results of research in teaching and education -- and why should they, when there is so very much nonsense in that field, effectively burying/hiding anything that might be of actual value? Instead, the relabeling, recycling, and rediscovery of old approaches, but treating them as if they were novel, will continue unabated. Expensive, large, and extravagant conferences on education and teaching will continue to be held, will be enjoyed by many as a reward for their otherwise dreary jobs, and will achieve little. Meanwhile, the greatest quantities of effective education will arise from variously the dedicated efforts of handfuls of parents, handfuls of good teachers, and handfuls of well-motivated students.
The post asked a direct prediction question, and twelve comments later, still no one rises to the bait?
I think higher education is more or less modelled on the priesthood, and while the particular articles of faith are important, what is really being taught and assessed is an ability to conform and a dedication to maintaining the interests of the priesthood and associated institutions. At least that's my experience...
Then again you might be fine with most students just retaining level 2 but some having had the opportunity to be introduced to level 10 and choosing to study that further...