J Wainman - Chartered College of Teaching 2024 - A short discussion
Implementing interleaving in secondary education presents certain barriers, despite teachers’ beliefs that interleaving is beneficial for long-term learning and can be easily implemented into their lessons (Rohrer et al. 2020; Grant 2023). Research has found that resource creation, low performance indicators during practice stages and student and parent perceptions are all significant barriers to implementing interleaving (Rohrer et al. 2020; Grant 2023). Within my context, I also have encountered such barriers with resource creation as I would feel that I would not have enough time or skill to make such a significant alteration to the Psychology curriculum.
Teacher individual routines were found to be very important in lesson rhythm, regardless of whether a blocked or interleaved approach was taken (Grant 2023). Teacher interviews have highlighted that workload and ‘old habits’ were key reasons why interleaving may be more difficult to implement (Grant 2023). To mitigate this, Grant (2023) identified that teachers struggled to implement interleaving before finding a new functioning routine. Research has suggested that this might be due to teacher development programmes focusing on ‘pedagogies of investigation’ (what to know) as opposed to ‘pedagogies of enactment’ (how to do) (Lindvall et al. 2022; Grant 2023). This might explain findings from both Rohrer et al. (2020) and Grant (2023) that teachers are aware of the benefits of interleaving, however their routine or enactment did not successfully implement interleaving.
One potential way to overcome this barrier, suggested by Grant (2023), is using Grossman et al.’s (2009) teacher education model that uses pedagogies of enactment through coaching teachers over time to work on strategies to implement interleaving into their lessons. This may be a more appropriate intervention model in comparison to teacher peer groups, however it must be noted that this model would be more costly for institutions (Grant 2023).
References:
Grant, A., 2023. Interleaved Practice: The role of habits in the implementation of a new technique.
Rohrer, D., Dedrick, R. F., Hartwig, M. K., & Cheung, C.-N. (2020). A Randomized Controlled Trial of Interleaved Mathematics Practice. Journal of Educational Psychology, 112(1), 40-52. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000367
Lindvall, J., Helenius, O., Eriksson, K., & Ryve, A. (2022). Impact and Design of a National- scale Professional Development Program for Mathematics Teachers. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 66(5), 744-759.
Grossman, P., Hammerness, K., & McDonald, M. (2009). Redefining teaching, re-imagining teacher education. Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice, 15(2), 273-289. https://doi.org/10.1080/13540600902875340
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