What is spaced learning?

Spaced learning advocates say it is the key to creating meaningful, long-lasting knowledge – but what does the wider research say, and how can it be used in the classroom?

Spaced learning - also known as distributed practice - is an approach designed to improve retention of information by getting the brain to return to, review and consolidate information over extended periods.

This means that the teaching of a new skill or concept happens at intervals, spaced apart to encourage children to recall what they’ve learned and commit it to long-term memory. This is in contrast to traditional “massed” or “clustered” practice, in which pupils cover new learning in a single lesson, or where revision focuses only on one subject topic in a single block of time.

Advocates of spaced learning argue that it improves both memory and understanding, as the brain is able to consolidate information through repetition. It involves thinking about ideas in different ways at different times and making connections between different concepts.

EEF view: what does the research say?

Depending on which classroom you find yourself in, spaced learning could be referred to as spaced practice, distributed learning or the spacing effect. Whatever the preferred terminology, spaced learning stems from the idea that new learning can be embedded more effectively if revisited multiple times over an extended period.

There is evidence that this approach can have a positive impact: a significant number of studies show that spacing out teaching and learning of new material over time, between intervals of unrelated content, can improve pupil learning across all ages and subject areas.

However, it’s important to note that in the vast majority of these studies, spaced learning was delivered by researchers or computer programmes rather than classroom teachers.

How does it work in the classroom?

Cognitive psychology expert Megan Smith spoke to Tes to offer key approaches for introducing spaced learning into the classroom, including:

Helping students to understand how spaced learning works and to plan their study schedule across the year for maximum benefit.
Revisiting old topics alongside new ones in class to encourage interleaving, in which students explore the similarities and differences between ideas.
Giving frequent low-stakes quizzes with questions taken from old and new material, to enable students to engage in retrieval practice and to encourage them to keep studying previously explored topics.
Setting homework assignments that revisit old topics to space out learning and allow the students time to practise what they know independently.

Dr Kirstin Mulholland, a lecturer in education at Northumbria University, told Tes that planning lots of short sessions over a long period can be powerful, particularly for teaching concepts like telling the time in maths.

She explained that long-term learning for this could be improved if practice is broken down into “short, 10-minute sessions over a number of days and weeks, rather than spending a few days looking at this intensively and then only revisiting this when children come to look at the concept of time again, 12 months later”.

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