did not\u00a0<\/strong>sleep between these two sessions.)<\/p>\nHow many times did these non-sleepers have to go through their flashcards to get all the answers right?<\/p>\n
On average, they reviewed flashcards 5.8 times to get all those word pairs right. (For the sake of simplicity, let’s just call that 6.)<\/p>\n
The other half learned the French-Swahili word pairs at 9 pm. They then got a good night’s sleep, and tested themselves 12 hours later, at 9 am.<\/p>\n
How many times did the sleepers go through flashcards to get all the word pairs right? On average, they got them all right on the third attempt.<\/p>\n
That’s right: instead of 6 review sessions, they needed 3.<\/p>\n
Can We Do Better?<\/h2>\n
Okay, so far this study is easy to explain and shows real promise. Because they spread practice out AND slept, they cut study time IN HALF to get all the answers right.<\/p>\n
But, so far this research measures learning 12 hours later. That’s not really\u00a0learning<\/em>. What happens if we test them later?<\/p>\nSpecifically, what happens if we test them\u00a06 months later<\/strong>?<\/p>\nHold onto your hat.<\/p>\n
When the researchers retested these students, the non-sleepers remembered 4<\/strong> of those word pairs. The sleepers remembered\u00a08<\/strong> pairs.<\/p>\nSo: HALF as much review resulted in TWICE as much learning 6 MONTHS later.<\/p>\n
The Headline Please<\/h2>\n
When I talk with students about brain research, I start with this question: “Would you like to study less and learn more?”<\/p>\n
I have yet to meet the student who doesn’t get behind that goal.<\/p>\n
This easy-to-explain study shows students that half as much review leads to twice as much memory formation — if they both spread practice out over time and sleep between review sessions.<\/p>\n
I think we have a winner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Because cognitive science gives us such good guidance about learning, we want to share that information with our students. “Study THIS WAY!” we cry. “Research says so!” Alas, all too often, students don’t follow our advice. A key part of the problem: the research that supports our advice is — ahem — really complicated and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":5717,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[15,23,10],"class_list":["post-5714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lb-blog","tag-classroom-advice","tag-long-term-memory","tag-sleep"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5714"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5737,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5714\/revisions\/5737"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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