January 16, 2025
Educators often feel the weight of new strategies presented as solutions for improving teaching and learning outcomes. Amid this, Mind, Brain, and Education (MBE) practices can seem like “just one more thing.” Yet, many teachers already use MBE strategies and need to realize it. Practices like interleaving, spacing, and retrieval are built into the rhythms of effective teaching—they simply need to be recognized, refined, and expanded.
MBE shines as the scientific foundation that supports and enhances effective teaching strategies rather than replacing them altogether. By understanding how the brain processes and retains information, educators can optimize their teaching methods to align with cognitive principles, making these strategies more impactful. Inquiry-Based Learning (IBL), Social-Emotional Learning (SEL), Project-Based Learning (PBL), and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) can all thrive when paired with the neuroscience of how students learn. For example, when students engage in inquiry-based learning, their curiosity-driven exploration taps into the brain’s natural reward systems, enhancing motivation and retention. Similarly, SEL practices become more effective when informed by how emotions and memory are intertwined in the brain, helping students regulate their emotions and engage more deeply with their learning.
Through my EdD research, I’ve uncovered examples of how these strategies work in real classrooms—and how recognizing them empowers educators to better support their students.
The Science of Learning: The Brain at Work
The Brain Learns Best in Layers
Interleaving is one of the most powerful ways to enhance learning—mixing different topics or skills during practice. A seminal study by Rohrer and Taylor (2007) provides compelling evidence of the effectiveness of interleaved practice, especially in math education. In this study, high school students were taught math concepts either in blocks, focusing on one topic at a time, or through interleaved practice, where multiple topics were mixed within the same lessons. The results were striking.
Students who engaged in interleaved practice performed 30-50% better on tests involving novel problems than their peers who had studied in a blocked format. The interleaved group retained the material better and demonstrated more flexible problem-solving skills, effectively applying their learning to unfamiliar problems. This improvement in performance and retention clearly demonstrates how interleaving aligns with the brain’s natural learning processes.
The takeaway? Interleaving isn’t about overwhelming students with complexity—it’s about strategically mixing content to create more meaningful, long-lasting connections in the brain, leading to deeper understanding and better retention of information.
The Forgetting Curve: Why Spacing Works
Hermann Ebbinghaus’s forgetting curve illustrates how quickly knowledge fades without reinforcement. Research shows that if information is not revisited, we can forget up to 75% of what we’ve learned within just one day, emphasizing how rapidly memory declines without strategic review. This phenomenon underscores the importance of spaced repetition—a technique that strengthens neural connections by revisiting material at increasing intervals, helping solidify knowledge and improving long-term retention. Spaced repetition combats forgetting and enhances learning efficiency by promoting deeper encoding of information in the brain.
One high school history teacher I spoke with uses a calendar-based system to space content reviews. Students engage with key concepts weekly—through quick quizzes, peer discussions, or short written reflections. This simple adjustment improved test scores and helped students feel more confident revisiting earlier material.
Spacing doesn’t need complex tools; even revisiting vocabulary words after a few days or reviewing past lessons for five minutes at the start of class can strengthen memory retention.
Retrieval: The Key to Long-Term Retention
Retrieval practice is one of the most powerful strategies for improving long-term memory retention. Studies, such as one conducted by Roediger and Butler (2011), have shown that actively recalling information through retrieval practice can improve student performance by up to 50% compared to passive review methods, such as re-reading or highlighting. This method enhances the strength of memory retrieval and helps solidify the neural pathways associated with the learned material. By engaging in retrieval, students reinforce their understanding, making it easier to access and apply the knowledge in future contexts, leading to more durable and transferable learning outcomes.
Take the example of a middle school Spanish class where students regularly practiced vocabulary retrieval. Instead of simple flashcards, students worked in pairs to write short dialogues using the words. The activity didn’t just test their recall—it reinforced how the vocabulary worked in real-life contexts, a critical skill for language retention.
An Unexpected Connection: Animal Farm and MBE Principles
During a recent visit to a school in Maryland, I observed an 8th-grade class reading Animal Farm by George Orwell. These students, identified as struggling readers and writers, made impressive connections between the text and various historical and contemporary contexts, such as Russian history, the Salem Witch Trials, and their personal experiences. The teacher’s use of interleaving, where students revisited key vocabulary and themes while making connections to different historical events, significantly deepened their understanding of the material. This approach enhanced the students’ comprehension and encouraged critical thinking, helping them see how the lessons in Animal Farm extended beyond the classroom and into the world around them.
What stood out was how their teacher used interleaving and retrieval to build understanding. Vocabulary terms were interwoven into the discussion, and students responded chorally to reinforce these terms, strengthening their neural connections. The teacher strategically used class time to maximize engagement, starting with a warm-up that revisited prior lessons and ending with a reflective question to prepare for the next class.
This approach blended choice, structure, and collaboration, giving students a sense of control while fostering deep engagement with the material. By incorporating opportunities for students to choose how they explored and discussed the text, alongside clear, structured guidance from the teacher, the students felt empowered and motivated to take ownership of their learning. Watching these students thrive with such a challenging text reminded me of the transformative power of aligning teaching methods with how the brain learns, highlighting the importance of providing students with the support and autonomy they need to succeed. This alignment between neuroscience and instructional practices allows for deeper cognitive engagement and meaningful connections to the material.
Connecting MBE Practices to Everyday Teaching
Science and Literature Interleaved
One middle school science teacher paired lessons on plant biology with creative writing exercises. Students wrote narratives from the perspective of a seed growing into a tree, weaving scientific facts into their stories. The combination of interleaving scientific content and storytelling fostered both retention and engagement.
History Retrieval in Action
A high school history class used primary source analysis as a retrieval practice tool, allowing students to revisit and engage with historical documents long after their initial study. Students debated documents they’d analyzed weeks earlier, applying them to new questions and reinforcing prior knowledge, strengthening their memory and understanding of historical events. This exercise encouraged active learning and critical thinking, as students were required to synthesize old information with new perspectives, helping them make connections and build more vital analytical skills that will serve them in future academic endeavors. Through this method, students gained a deeper, more enduring grasp of the material and developed the ability to apply historical knowledge in real-world contexts.
My Journey into MBE Practices
I didn’t begin my career knowing about MBE. I explored frameworks like SEL, PBL, and DEIB, but I kept returning to one unifying truth: these approaches can flounder without understanding how the brain learns. MBE became the foundation that tied everything together, helping me know how to optimize learning environments for all students.
This realization has guided my work as an educator and leader, inspiring me to integrate neuroscience into professional development for teachers, equipping them with strategies that align with how the brain learns. By fostering this understanding, we can create more effective and supportive learning environments where teachers and students thrive. Our students must understand what they’re learning and how they’re learning, as this metacognitive skill prepares them to tackle challenges we can’t yet predict, ensuring they are adaptable and resilient in an ever-evolving world. By embracing this approach, we are preparing students for success, both in the classroom and beyond, with the tools they need to be lifelong learners.
Concrete Steps for Teachers and Administrators
For Teachers
- Incorporate Retrieval Practice: Start lessons with a “brain dump” of prior knowledge or use quick quizzes to reinforce concepts.
- Plan for Spaced Reviews: Use calendars or spiral curricula to revisit critical concepts periodically.
- Mix It Up: Interleave topics in your lessons, helping students connect across subjects.
For Administrators
- Support MBE Professional Development: Provide teachers with resources and training to understand MBE strategies.
- Align Curricula: Build interleaving and spacing into curriculum maps.
- Foster Collaboration: Create opportunities for teachers to share MBE practices and successes.
A Call to Action
MBE practices are not about overhauling your teaching methods but enhancing them. Instead of asking teachers to discard what already works, MBE integrates scientific insights that can strengthen existing practices. By building on strategies like retrieval practice, interleaving, and spaced repetition, teachers can significantly improve student engagement, retention, and overall learning without drastically changing their current approach.
Aligning education with neuroscience helps ensure that all students are supported and motivated to succeed. Understanding how the brain processes and retains information enables educators to create more effective, inclusive, and flexible learning environments. Teaching the brain we have taps into its natural strengths, empowering students to reach their full potential. This approach enhances academic performance and equips students with essential skills for navigating future challenges, promoting lifelong learning and growth.
Resources:
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Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2019). Reflecting on reflexive thematic analysis. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 11(4), 589–597. https://doi.org/10.1080/2159676X.2019.1628806
Cepeda, N. J., Pashler, H., Vul, E., Wixted, J. T., & Rohrer, D. (2006). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 132(3), 354–380. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.3.354
Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques: Promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4–58. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100612453266
Howard-Jones, P. A. (2014). Neuroscience and education: Myths and messages. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 15(12), 817–824. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3817
Karpicke, J. D., & Blunt, J. R. (2011). Retrieval practice produces more learning than elaborative studying with concept mapping. Science, 331(6018), 772–775. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1199327
Roediger, H. L., & Butler, A. C. (2011). The critical role of retrieval practice in long-term retention. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 15(1), 20–27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2010.09.003
Rohrer, D., & Taylor, K. (2010). The effects of interleaved practice. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 21(6), 1065-1079. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.1598
Schunk, D. H. (2011). Learning theories: An educational perspective (6th ed.). Pearson.
Willis, J., & Willis, M. (2020). Research-Based Strategies to Ignite Student Learning: Insights from Neuroscience and the Classroom, Revised and Expanded Edition. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
You may also be interested in reading more articles written by Jude Ross for Intrepid Ed News.
