* Educators sometimes call a noninterleaved assignment a “blocked” assignment, because the subject is worked on all in one block.

Incidentally, interleaving is good because it allows your attentional octopus to consciously compare different techniques. This helps you develop new “deciding” links that allow you to figure out which techniques to choose. Task switching, on the other hand, is bad because you’re just dragging your attentional octopus from topic to topic. This makes your octopus do unnecessary work every time you switch tasks.

Interleaving is often difficult for textbook writers to do. This is because there is a natural need for questions at the end of each chapter that focus on that chapter. This means that interleaving is up to you, the reader!