Yo. What is Spaced Repetition? I like to describe it like this: it’s when you rope a skill back into your orbit right before you’re about to lose it. You space your practice of skills so that they’re always timed as close to that about-to-lose it point as possible. That’s when it’s exciting but not overwhelming. Practicing a skill before this Magic Moment feels boring (why do I have to do MORE problems like this???- I GOT these.) Practicing it after this Magic Moment feels scary (ugh- I forgot how to do these!) Practicing right at this Magic Moment feels just right. (the Goldilocks Principle!)
So guess what RIGHT NOW is? It’s the Magic Moment for practicing the math skills that you were doing in your class in the spring. This doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Just pick ONE skill from the spring and do a mid-summer review of it. Make sure you still got it. (Some examples of ONE skill you might choose: reducing fractions, adding and subtracting positive and negative numbers, finding the slope from 2 points, using FOIL to expand the product of 2 binomials).
Two more gifts for all of you:
- A much more in-depth discussion of Spaced Repetition.
- A serenade by The Drifters (Ben E. King y’all!), who were clearly singing about learning math!