1 00:00:02,040 --> 00:00:07,120 Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hey, brain Stuff, 2 00:00:07,160 --> 00:00:10,639 Speaker 1: Lauren vog obam here with a familiar scenario. It's the 3 00:00:10,720 --> 00:00:13,800 Speaker 1: day before a big calculus exam and you haven't studied 4 00:00:13,840 --> 00:00:16,480 Speaker 1: for whatever reason. You're short on time, you have too 5 00:00:16,520 --> 00:00:18,800 Speaker 1: many other exams packed into the same day, too many 6 00:00:18,920 --> 00:00:22,400 Speaker 1: cat videos. You know. Around ten pm you finally sit 7 00:00:22,440 --> 00:00:25,320 Speaker 1: down to review the material. Six hours later, you catch 8 00:00:25,320 --> 00:00:28,159 Speaker 1: a short nap before rushing to school. You take the 9 00:00:28,240 --> 00:00:31,160 Speaker 1: exam and it seems to go fine, although it wasn't 10 00:00:31,240 --> 00:00:33,720 Speaker 1: your best effort. You pass and promise not to repeat 11 00:00:33,720 --> 00:00:36,720 Speaker 1: the cycle when it's time for your next one. This 12 00:00:36,800 --> 00:00:40,000 Speaker 1: is what's known as cramming, and while students, parents and 13 00:00:40,120 --> 00:00:43,720 Speaker 1: educators have long known it's not ideal in desperate circumstances, 14 00:00:43,760 --> 00:00:46,880 Speaker 1: it does work to some degree. And by some degree 15 00:00:46,920 --> 00:00:49,080 Speaker 1: we mean it might save your g p A. But 16 00:00:49,320 --> 00:00:52,959 Speaker 1: cramming doesn't provide long term learning. According to researchers who 17 00:00:52,960 --> 00:00:55,760 Speaker 1: study how we learn versus how we think we learn 18 00:00:56,080 --> 00:01:00,200 Speaker 1: a spoiler alert, we're usually really wrong in the use 19 00:01:00,200 --> 00:01:02,400 Speaker 1: of cramming. You may pass the test and feel like 20 00:01:02,400 --> 00:01:05,000 Speaker 1: you've got the material down, but research shows that a 21 00:01:05,080 --> 00:01:09,400 Speaker 1: dramatic rate of forgetting occurs afterwards. This is especially problematic 22 00:01:09,440 --> 00:01:12,560 Speaker 1: when one lesson provides foundational information for the next like 23 00:01:12,720 --> 00:01:16,120 Speaker 1: in math or a language class. Forgetting most of what 24 00:01:16,160 --> 00:01:19,319 Speaker 1: you learned is not the only downside to cramming. Researchers 25 00:01:19,360 --> 00:01:21,480 Speaker 1: have found that losing sleep while pulling an all nighter 26 00:01:21,680 --> 00:01:24,920 Speaker 1: also leads to residual academic problems for days after the 27 00:01:24,920 --> 00:01:27,880 Speaker 1: cramming session. You can imagine the negative effects of an 28 00:01:27,920 --> 00:01:32,640 Speaker 1: ongoing cycle of procrastination and cramming. More than a century 29 00:01:32,640 --> 00:01:35,480 Speaker 1: of research shows that if you study something twice, retention 30 00:01:35,560 --> 00:01:38,760 Speaker 1: goes up. Studying and then waiting before you study more 31 00:01:38,959 --> 00:01:42,399 Speaker 1: produces even better long term memory. This is called the 32 00:01:42,440 --> 00:01:46,880 Speaker 1: spacing effect. Rather than reviewing material right away, students benefit 33 00:01:46,920 --> 00:01:50,040 Speaker 1: from spacing out their study sessions. There are many arguments 34 00:01:50,080 --> 00:01:52,480 Speaker 1: about why spacing works better for a long time retention. 35 00:01:53,040 --> 00:01:56,960 Speaker 1: One relates to encoding. When a student studies something from 36 00:01:56,960 --> 00:01:59,640 Speaker 1: a book and reviews it immediately, the student will encode 37 00:01:59,680 --> 00:02:02,360 Speaker 1: the infra nation in the same way both times. That's 38 00:02:02,440 --> 00:02:05,760 Speaker 1: not very helpful long term. The more different times and 39 00:02:05,800 --> 00:02:09,120 Speaker 1: ways you can encode information, the better you'll understand it, 40 00:02:09,160 --> 00:02:12,040 Speaker 1: and the longer you'll know it. This means that even 41 00:02:12,080 --> 00:02:14,840 Speaker 1: studying the same material in two different locations can help 42 00:02:14,880 --> 00:02:17,800 Speaker 1: you encode it in different ways, Therefore you'll learn it 43 00:02:17,840 --> 00:02:22,160 Speaker 1: more successfully. Another factor at work is that research shows 44 00:02:22,200 --> 00:02:24,639 Speaker 1: that the harder it is for a brain to recall something, 45 00:02:24,840 --> 00:02:27,160 Speaker 1: the more powerful the effects of that recall will be 46 00:02:27,200 --> 00:02:30,080 Speaker 1: in the long term. For example, if you're at a 47 00:02:30,080 --> 00:02:33,040 Speaker 1: conference and meet someone new, you might recall their name immediately, 48 00:02:33,240 --> 00:02:36,840 Speaker 1: which probably won't help you remember it the next day. However, 49 00:02:37,000 --> 00:02:38,919 Speaker 1: if you need to recall the person's name an hour 50 00:02:39,080 --> 00:02:41,720 Speaker 1: into the conference and do so, you'll have a better 51 00:02:41,800 --> 00:02:44,000 Speaker 1: chance of remembering it a day or a week later 52 00:02:44,120 --> 00:02:46,080 Speaker 1: because you had to put in the effort to recall it. 53 00:02:46,960 --> 00:02:49,440 Speaker 1: A third reason why spacing works is that people pay 54 00:02:49,520 --> 00:02:52,080 Speaker 1: less attention to the second presentation of material that they've 55 00:02:52,120 --> 00:02:55,520 Speaker 1: just seen because the information is already familiar. When the 56 00:02:55,560 --> 00:02:58,400 Speaker 1: material is spaced out, it's no longer is familiar, so 57 00:02:58,440 --> 00:03:02,760 Speaker 1: people pay more attention if the spacing effect sounds like 58 00:03:02,800 --> 00:03:05,320 Speaker 1: a lot of waiting around to review material, and it 59 00:03:05,400 --> 00:03:08,200 Speaker 1: may indeed slow the learning process because you'll be studying 60 00:03:08,240 --> 00:03:10,680 Speaker 1: for more than one evening. Recent studies have shown the 61 00:03:10,680 --> 00:03:14,000 Speaker 1: positive effects of another study method, mixing up different material 62 00:03:14,040 --> 00:03:18,320 Speaker 1: while studying. This concept, called interleaving, consists of working on 63 00:03:18,560 --> 00:03:21,200 Speaker 1: or studying one skill for a short period of time, 64 00:03:21,400 --> 00:03:24,160 Speaker 1: then switching to another one, then maybe a third, then 65 00:03:24,360 --> 00:03:28,519 Speaker 1: back to the first. A twenty fifteen study tested interleaving 66 00:03:28,560 --> 00:03:32,120 Speaker 1: in nine middle school classrooms teaching algebra and geometry. A 67 00:03:32,200 --> 00:03:34,440 Speaker 1: day after the lesson for the unit was complete, the 68 00:03:34,480 --> 00:03:38,040 Speaker 1: students trained with interleaving scored better than the students who 69 00:03:38,040 --> 00:03:41,640 Speaker 1: received standard training. A month later, the interleaving group was 70 00:03:41,720 --> 00:03:45,720 Speaker 1: up seventy six. This is great news. Studying for an 71 00:03:45,720 --> 00:03:48,080 Speaker 1: exam or completing a big project doesn't need to feel 72 00:03:48,080 --> 00:03:52,000 Speaker 1: so daunting, and interleaving has benefits for writing too. Rather 73 00:03:52,040 --> 00:03:54,320 Speaker 1: than trying to block out two hours to study for 74 00:03:54,360 --> 00:03:56,880 Speaker 1: a math test, study math for thirty minutes before you 75 00:03:56,920 --> 00:03:58,920 Speaker 1: move on to French, and then work on an essay. 76 00:03:59,280 --> 00:04:02,440 Speaker 1: Go back to the math later. There's a message here 77 00:04:02,480 --> 00:04:05,080 Speaker 1: for teachers as well as students. Instead of teaching a 78 00:04:05,120 --> 00:04:07,240 Speaker 1: topic and a block and going to the next steps, 79 00:04:07,440 --> 00:04:09,760 Speaker 1: teachers can spend a short time on a topic, go 80 00:04:09,840 --> 00:04:13,640 Speaker 1: on to others, then return to the earlier topics. But 81 00:04:13,760 --> 00:04:15,680 Speaker 1: it seems that we have a lot to learn about 82 00:04:15,720 --> 00:04:18,640 Speaker 1: how we learn a two thousand nine study from u 83 00:04:18,640 --> 00:04:20,960 Speaker 1: c l A found that spacing was more effective than 84 00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:24,680 Speaker 1: cramming for the participants. Just six percent of those who 85 00:04:24,720 --> 00:04:27,880 Speaker 1: crammed learned more than those who studied using the spacing effect. 86 00:04:28,680 --> 00:04:33,039 Speaker 1: In three experiments, researchers tested spacing against cramming. Yet despite 87 00:04:33,040 --> 00:04:35,919 Speaker 1: the findings in favor of spacing, participants believed that the 88 00:04:35,960 --> 00:04:40,200 Speaker 1: cramming style was more effective. And U c l A 89 00:04:40,240 --> 00:04:42,800 Speaker 1: study found that staying up and foregoing sleep to study 90 00:04:42,920 --> 00:04:46,880 Speaker 1: is actually counterproductive. No matter how much a student studies daily, 91 00:04:47,080 --> 00:04:49,720 Speaker 1: if they sacrifice sleep in order to study more, they're 92 00:04:49,760 --> 00:04:57,760 Speaker 1: likely to have more academic problems, not less the next day. 93 00:04:58,360 --> 00:05:00,520 Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by Carrie at n E, pH 94 00:05:00,640 --> 00:05:03,240 Speaker 1: d and produced by Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is a 95 00:05:03,240 --> 00:05:05,880 Speaker 1: production of iHeartMedia's How Stuff Works. For more on this 96 00:05:06,000 --> 00:05:08,279 Speaker 1: and lots of other studious topics, visit our home planet, 97 00:05:08,360 --> 00:05:10,960 Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com. And for more podcasts. For 98 00:05:11,040 --> 00:05:13,920 Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, 99 00:05:13,960 --> 00:05:15,640 Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.