Interleaving
A study technique where students mix, or interleave, multiple subjects or topics while they study, in order to improve their learning.
Interleaving stands in contrast to "blocked practice," where one topic is studied exhaustively before moving to the next (e.g., AAABBBCCC vs ABCABCABC). While blocked practice may feel easier in the moment, interleaving forces the brain to constantly retrieve and distinguish between different concepts.
Benefits
This "desirable difficulty" leads to stronger neural connections and better ability to transfer knowledge to new contexts, such as clinical reasoning in medicine where symptoms do not appear in blocked categories.