Let’s throw Learning Styles AND Multiple Intelligences out the window!

Spaced Out! Using Science to Develop a Writing Practice.

As graduate students, writing is a large part of our studies. Often, we’re engaging in discussion posts in Canvas as well as writing short reflection papers and/or hefty final term papers, not to mention independent or collaborative research projects that have publication goals. When I began graduate school, I didn’t exactly know I would become a writer – but here I am, spending a lot of time and precious brain power trying to assess my writing habits, break poor habits, and form new, more productive and sustainable writing practices.

Assessing My Historic Writing Habits 

Spoiler alert - they’re not great! Looking back at my undergraduate days, I actually didn’t have many classes that required writing. As a visual art major, I was more often in the studio than  in the library or computer lab. However, a quick mental survey of the few courses that included writing assignments quickly revealed a troubling trend. That final paper for Current Topics in Latin American Studies? Written the night before its due date. An essay for Art History 101? Wrote it the night before it was due. The short story assignment for freshman English…any guesses? I don’t recall anything about that short story, so that probably means I wrote it the day before. Now, I can provide several reasons for why this trend emerged: I felt more creative when I’m working against a deadline, it was satisfying to complete an assignment in one fell swoop, and I absolutely hated being in the computer lab more often than necessary (this was before most students had a personal computer).

Image by Erunion 

Now, I realize I had fallen victim to the myth that cramming, or massed practice, was a good strategy for learning or writing a paper. Massed practice is when a learner spends a single study session trying to learn a topic through intensive repetition or study of the material. Cramming is an extreme version of massed practice that involves trying to learn a large amount of information in short time period. People (including myself) often feel that massed practice and cramming are effective; learning may feel easier through repeated exposure to material over a shorter period of time, an acceptable grade on a paper or test reinforces massed practice as a good strategy, and cramming can feel more efficient. 

But what does research in the learning sciences have to say? In short, those reasons we like massed practice - it’s all baloney. Massed practice might produce short-term benefits because knowledge held in working memory feels readily accessible, but it does not support the type of long-lasting, durable learning that creates the foundation for future deep learning and complex problem solving. So, while writing that art history essay the night before felt fruitful, I wasn’t doing myself any favors and it’s unsurprising I don’t recall what it was about. What then, is a better approach to learning and writing?

Using Science to Develop a  Better Writing Practice

The opposite of massed practice is spaced practice. Hundreds of studies have shown that spaced practice is a more effective learning and retention strategy for topics as diverse as math, history, music, sports, and biology. Spaced practice is when you spread out your study or practice sessions over a longer period of time, instead of trying to learn an entire topic in only one study session. Spacing comes in different forms: between- session and within-session. What’s the difference?  Between session spacing is when you spread the studying of a single topic over several study sessions. For example, between-session spacing for writing might mean I spend one hour each day working on my research paper instead of five hours on a single day. Within-session spacing is when you space out the learning of a single topic within a single study session using interleaving and varied practice. In short, a learner would study different concepts or different types of problems within the same study session, thereby conducted a mixed study or practice session. For my writing practice, within-session spacing for a four-hour work period might look like this: I first spend 30 minutes reviewing several articles, then spend an hour working on the literature review section, followed by one hour working on the discussion section, then back to reviewing relevant articles for 30 minutes, and finishing with another hour of writing the literature review section.

How does spacing produce longer, more durable learning? 

When learning is spaced, knowledge must be retrieved from memory during each study session after some level of forgetting has taken place. This act of effortful retrieval from long-term memory brings the knowledge into working memory, where it becomes pliable and the learner is able to reexamine the knowledge, apply it, and connect it to new knowledge. With spaced practice, knowledge goes through a reconsolidation process, which strengthens memory traces and retrieval cues that allow you to access that knowledge more easily in the future and after longer periods of time.

Image by jjpacres

It’s clear that my old writing habits will not serve me well in my graduate studies and future academic career. Since publication frequency is a common assessment criterion in academia, developing a writing practice that produces quantity, quality, and enhances my overall development as a writer is essential. In addition, and this is very important, spaced practice does not mean I should be spending more time writing overall, but it should make me more efficient and insightful with the time I dedicate to it.

Getting a good bang for my buck in my writing practice means I’ll have more time to spend on other things that help me maintain a positive work-life balance, like going hiking and taking naps. Developing and following through on a spaced writing practice is challenging, but I’ve already made some baby steps by scheduling several writing sessions each week and sticking to them, even if I don’t feel like writing. After all, using the concepts of interleaved and varied practice, there’s always some writing-related task to work on that can contribute to a sustainable and durable writing practice.

References

Brown, P. C., Rodedinger, H. L., & McDaniel, M. A. (2014). ​Make it stick: The science of successful learning. ​The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Rhodes, M. G., Cleary, A. M., & DeLosh, E. L. (2020) A guide to effective studying and learning: Practical strategies from the science of learning. Oxford University Press.