- The curriculum program enables the students to realise a nominal study approach: The pace of study of the students equals the regular study program. Students will study regularly and spend more study time. The students can benefit from the teaching and learning activities offered. You prevent students from waiting until the last week when studying for a test.
- The teaching and learning should be evenly distributed in a week and over the year.
- Follow the idea of interleaving assignments. Instead of massed practice (aaabbbccc), you follow interleaved practice (acbcacbab). Students have to follow different problem-solving approaches in different assignments). Interleaved practice is far more effective than massed practice (see blog 3-Star Learning Experiences, 2022). Interleaving leads to better long-term retention and a more remarkable ability to transfer learned knowledge.
- An accumulation of study time in different courses should be prevented. Often, students focus on specific activities of a particular course and will stay behind in the other course(s) activities.
- The optimum of the F2F hours is around 12 hours per week. If there are fewer or more F2F hours, the students’ study time could decrease. An exception to this is practical activities. This effect depends on the usefulness of the teaching and learning activities as experienced by the students.
- The self-study activities should stimulate the students to be active learners.
•The learning activities need to be useful for different types of students.
•Students master learning objectives or topics better if they spread out the study of each objective or topic over time. There should be at least two days between the intermittent practice moments (see the website Kirschner and Neelen: spaced learning). - The schedule should include the self-study hours to ensure the students can finish their self-study activities before the next F2F activity.
