Varied Practice

Varied practice, also called variable practice, mixed practice or interleaving, is a training schedule in the study of learning and memory that deliberately changes tasks frequently so that a learner keeps confronting new versions of the material rather than repeating the same narrow task until it is mastered before moving on. A basketball player using varied practice would cycle through mid-range jump shots, layups, free throws and three-point attempts within the same practice session rather than perfecting one shot type before starting the next, the approach conventional blocked practice takes; even early in training, a learner following varied practice is exposed to multiple versions of a problem side by side. By spacing repetitions over time and mixing content so the differences between related tasks or problems stand out, varied practice is intended to strengthen learning even though it typically looks less impressive during the practice session itself than blocked practice does.