To Learn, Space Out
Using the Spacing Effect to Boost Retention and Understanding
Procrastination, it seems, is human nature. We tell ourselves there’s always tomorrow. That is, until the day before an exam. Then, typically, there’s a frantic attempt to cram as much information as possible into a single study session. But a one-time encounter with the material, even if it’s a five-hour-long session, is going to do very little to promote long-term learning.
There’s a simple, unintuitive way to study smarter. Simply by breaking up study sessions into smaller, manageable chunks and spreading them out over time, a lot more learning will take place. Researchers who study learning and memory call it the “spacing effect,” and it’s an incredibly powerful and easy way to enhance long-term retention. It has been shown to boost learning in kids as young as two years old, elementary school students, high schoolers, college students, and folks in senior living communities. Across all ages and subjects, studies consistently show that spacing out study sessions over time improves one’s ability to remember and understand information for longer periods.¹
100 Years of Remembering
Learning scientists have known about the spacing effect for a long time. Over 100 years ago, a German researcher named Hermann Ebbinghaus…
