Teaching Life

Observing students running around playing basketball and then sitting down to learn a lesson in 8 minutes before beginning the basketball activity may look strange to an outsider that is accustomed to traditional classroom instruction. In England, the teachers at Monkseaton High School in Tyne and Wear are using a method of teaching called ’spaced learning’ and they have been getting remarkable results on students’ achievement. Spaced learning is based on neuroscientific research on long-term memory.

Spaced Learning gives short quick lessons that are then interspersed with other activities and then repeated at regular intervals. This is supposed to create connections in the brain’s of the students. The research explains that the pathways to create memories need to be stimulated with gaps or breaks in between to create a memory.

This research is lead by the National Institute for Child Health and Development in the United States. The bottom line is the research revealed that the connections between developing brain cells form most effectively when the brain is given regular breaks.

This makes sense in many ways. For one, the attention span can be held longer if students are given breaks to work on something else. In addition, students that are stimulated by physical activity are more likely to stay focused on the task at hand. Breaks also allow the brain to take all the information in small doses and digest it to creat long-term memories.

The spaced learning method can be used along with some traditional teaching methods to give students a balanced education while still learning the foundations of each subject.

More information can be found on Monkseaton’s website .

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