202409301622 Status: #idea Tags: #learning_theory # Mixed Practice People tend to practice one topic at a time. They'll pick a chapter from a textbook and drill that topic till they feel they know it, then move onto the next chapter in their practice. What this prevents your brain from doing is learning to compare & contrast the topics you're learning, as well as learning to relate them together. An example from baseball - a study was conducted where a team was split into two groups. One trained the normal way: hitting 45 pitches where the first 15 were fastballs, next 15 were curve balls, and last 15 were change ups. The other group hit the same number of balls, 15 fastballs, 15 curve balls, and 15 change ups, but this time the order of the pitches was entirely random. They found that the second group improved a MASSIVE amount more than the first group in their in-game hitting performance because, since they didn't know which pitch was coming in practice, their brain had to learn to discriminate between fastballs, curve balls, and change ups in milliseconds. **The same holds true for knowledge tasks - training different topics together will teach your brain to discriminate between the topics and their appropriate approaches** --- # References [[Make it stick_ the science of successful learning]]