Learning Intervals

My son recently qualified for the county championship in the 1500m.  He came second in his qualifying race and although he ran well he knew that he could not have won his race that day.  He is determined to do better at the county championship.  As he trains for the county championship it would be pointless just getting him to run 1500m over and over and hope that his time would improve.  It may well improve a little but the improvement would be small and take time - in fact his times may not improve at all.  Instead of this, he is doing interval training.  He is running 300m at a faster pace, then jogging the next 300m; running 300m at the faster pace, then jogging the next 300m, then finishing with a fast 300m.  Over time the fast sections will increase in length and the jogging sections will get shorter until he can run the whole 1500m at the new, faster pace.  That's his training plan to do well at the county championship.

The same method can be used in the classroom.  Many of you will be familiar with the think, pair, share technique which is often used before a discussion in class.  The idea is that everyone is given a set amount of time to think about the question.  At the end of that time each pair of learners talk about their ideas to refine their thinking; again they are given a set amount of time for this.  Finally each pair's ideas are shared with the class, usually with the teacher asking named learners - no hands.

Think, pair, share usually leads to learners working hard - which is the whole idea!  The idea can be adapted to incorporate other learning.  For example, individuals can be given a section from an exam paper with a set time to work on it.  When the time is up each pair can compare answers to produce their best answer, and then share it with the rest of the class by pinning it to a display board.

This is were the interval idea comes in.  The first time this is done with the class, give then a short amount of time to work independently.  The amount of time will depend on the group, for some it might be 3 minutes, for others it might be 10.  When the class can concentrate for this time, increase it but not by too much, perhaps by an additional 10% or 20% - use your judgement.  The learners probably won't even realise that they are concentrating for longer.  Over time these working intervals can become longer and eventually they can be very long indeed.  Certainly, this idea can be used to prepare learners for long GCSE or A Level exams.  For many students the idea of working for the length of time required in these exams in daunting but this technique can be used to build up to it gradually without the learners noticing that they are putting in too much extra.  This should be especially useful with people who suffer from exam nerves, and with lower ability groups.