The Distributed Study Model
The Distributed Study Model
Transcript
A colleague and I created the Distributed Study Model at Columbia's School of General Studies a few years ago. My colleague, Mike Allen, has worked with students taking technical courses for many years. And one of the things he noticed about students who succeeded in technical courses is that they didn't just go to lecture and review their notes. They found ways to build multiple engagements with the same material into their study habits. This idea of multiple engagements is at the core of the Distributed Study Model and cognitive and learning science tells us the same thing.
When you have more engagements with the same material and when those engagements are quality engagements and they're varied kinds of engagements over a long span of time, you increase comprehension and retention. Let me give you an example. Let's say you're taking a biology class and you learn a particular concept. You go to lecture, the professor teaches the concept, you leave lecture. And then, three months later, you review your notes on that particular topic before the exam. That's two engagements. Now I want you to imagine a different student in the same biology class. That student, before the lecture on the given topic, goes into their textbooks and prepares themself to learn about that topic in lecture. Then, they go to lecture and the professor delivers the material. Then, when they leave lecture, they review their notes from lecture and they compare it to what they looked at in the textbook. Then they do their problem set, then they create a study guide, then they talk with a classmate about the lecture. The student who had more engagements with the same material and the student who had those engagements be different from one another over a long period of time, is going to have better comprehension and more robust retention of that information over time.
And that's the idea behind the Distributed Study Model. Essentially, we want to create a before the lecture, a during the lecture, and an after the lecture, in order to really increase that comprehension in the initial phase and increase retention as we move away from the point of contact. So let's take a look at the Distributed Study Model. As you can see, it's organized around something we call this point of contact, and that's primarily the lecture, although engagement with the problem sets, going to office hours, going to discussion sections and labs, are also points of contact or points of instruction.
That's at the core of the Distributed Study Model. But as I mentioned, we want to create a before the lecture and an after the lecture. The before the lecture is that pre-lecture preparation phase. In this phase we prepare ourself for the moment of instruction. This is where you go into your textbook and you look at what topic is going to be covered in lecture and try to prepare yourself a little bit for being instructed. Take a look at the problem set that you're going to be expected to do and determine what parts of those problems look familiar to you and what parts seem completely foreign. This allows you to identify what you already know and also identify gaps in your understanding. The pre-preparation phase allows you to go into the lecture warm rather than cold, and it means that when the professor mentions terms or mentions a concept, those terms and concepts aren't brand new to you. In fact, you've already heard them before and you're already kind of familiar with them.
And so the work of lecture becomes transforming that familiarity into deeper understanding. Again, the points of contact phase is that moment where you're really learning the material. That's going to be your lecture. That's going to be your recitation section. It's also, critically, going to be your problem sets. Because remember, in a technical course, your understanding is evaluated by doing problems that apply the concepts. And so in your point of contact phase, you're really focused on completing the problem sets and understanding what it is that the problem sets are trying to address and evaluate.
And finally, we have what we call the post-lecture consolidation phase. Essentially, this is where you review your material and you turn something you're vaguely familiar with into something you understand deeply. You take the information from lecture and you make it part of your working knowledge. During this phase, you review your notes. During this phase, you go to office hours and you seek clarifications to fill in any gaps in your knowledge. During this phase, you create a detailed, comprehensive study guide of what you learned and you add those concepts that you learned to your master concept list. Again, a before, a during and an after. What does this do? It takes the single point of contact in the lecture and the secondary point of contact in the review, those two engagements, and it turns it into multiple engagements.
Engagement one, when you prep the lecture. Engagement two, when you attended lecture and learned from the professor. Engagement three, when you talked to a classmate about the lecture as you walked out of the lecture hall. Engagement four, when you did your problem set, again, and tried to understand what you missed the first time. Engagement five, when you actually created your study guide, or added the concepts to your master concept list.
Those multiple quality engagements, those engagements that are varied in type and in kind, and those engagements that are spanned out over a long period of time, that's going to allow you to increase both your comprehension of the material, your raw understanding, and your retention of that material, how long you remember it and how easily you're able to pull it up in an exam setting.
And remember, I know this seems like a lot of stuff. I know it seems like a lot of phases. I know it seems like a lot of extra work, and it is extra work. Learning difficult material is hard. But, even if you can't do all of this, even if you can't prep your lecture and go to lecture and review your lecture in this detail, understand that any of this is going to be more beneficial than none of this. So take a look at your Distributed Study Model.
Decide what pieces of it you can fit into your own practice, and try to incorporate parts of it, so that you create a before, a during and an after, to really bolster your comprehension and retention of information that's presented in technical courses.
When you have more engagements with the same material and when those engagements are quality engagements and they're varied kinds of engagements over a long span of time, you increase comprehension and retention. Let me give you an example. Let's say you're taking a biology class and you learn a particular concept. You go to lecture, the professor teaches the concept, you leave lecture. And then, three months later, you review your notes on that particular topic before the exam. That's two engagements. Now I want you to imagine a different student in the same biology class. That student, before the lecture on the given topic, goes into their textbooks and prepares themself to learn about that topic in lecture. Then, they go to lecture and the professor delivers the material. Then, when they leave lecture, they review their notes from lecture and they compare it to what they looked at in the textbook. Then they do their problem set, then they create a study guide, then they talk with a classmate about the lecture. The student who had more engagements with the same material and the student who had those engagements be different from one another over a long period of time, is going to have better comprehension and more robust retention of that information over time.
And that's the idea behind the Distributed Study Model. Essentially, we want to create a before the lecture, a during the lecture, and an after the lecture, in order to really increase that comprehension in the initial phase and increase retention as we move away from the point of contact. So let's take a look at the Distributed Study Model. As you can see, it's organized around something we call this point of contact, and that's primarily the lecture, although engagement with the problem sets, going to office hours, going to discussion sections and labs, are also points of contact or points of instruction.
That's at the core of the Distributed Study Model. But as I mentioned, we want to create a before the lecture and an after the lecture. The before the lecture is that pre-lecture preparation phase. In this phase we prepare ourself for the moment of instruction. This is where you go into your textbook and you look at what topic is going to be covered in lecture and try to prepare yourself a little bit for being instructed. Take a look at the problem set that you're going to be expected to do and determine what parts of those problems look familiar to you and what parts seem completely foreign. This allows you to identify what you already know and also identify gaps in your understanding. The pre-preparation phase allows you to go into the lecture warm rather than cold, and it means that when the professor mentions terms or mentions a concept, those terms and concepts aren't brand new to you. In fact, you've already heard them before and you're already kind of familiar with them.
And so the work of lecture becomes transforming that familiarity into deeper understanding. Again, the points of contact phase is that moment where you're really learning the material. That's going to be your lecture. That's going to be your recitation section. It's also, critically, going to be your problem sets. Because remember, in a technical course, your understanding is evaluated by doing problems that apply the concepts. And so in your point of contact phase, you're really focused on completing the problem sets and understanding what it is that the problem sets are trying to address and evaluate.
And finally, we have what we call the post-lecture consolidation phase. Essentially, this is where you review your material and you turn something you're vaguely familiar with into something you understand deeply. You take the information from lecture and you make it part of your working knowledge. During this phase, you review your notes. During this phase, you go to office hours and you seek clarifications to fill in any gaps in your knowledge. During this phase, you create a detailed, comprehensive study guide of what you learned and you add those concepts that you learned to your master concept list. Again, a before, a during and an after. What does this do? It takes the single point of contact in the lecture and the secondary point of contact in the review, those two engagements, and it turns it into multiple engagements.
Engagement one, when you prep the lecture. Engagement two, when you attended lecture and learned from the professor. Engagement three, when you talked to a classmate about the lecture as you walked out of the lecture hall. Engagement four, when you did your problem set, again, and tried to understand what you missed the first time. Engagement five, when you actually created your study guide, or added the concepts to your master concept list.
Those multiple quality engagements, those engagements that are varied in type and in kind, and those engagements that are spanned out over a long period of time, that's going to allow you to increase both your comprehension of the material, your raw understanding, and your retention of that material, how long you remember it and how easily you're able to pull it up in an exam setting.
And remember, I know this seems like a lot of stuff. I know it seems like a lot of phases. I know it seems like a lot of extra work, and it is extra work. Learning difficult material is hard. But, even if you can't do all of this, even if you can't prep your lecture and go to lecture and review your lecture in this detail, understand that any of this is going to be more beneficial than none of this. So take a look at your Distributed Study Model.
Decide what pieces of it you can fit into your own practice, and try to incorporate parts of it, so that you create a before, a during and an after, to really bolster your comprehension and retention of information that's presented in technical courses.