Seminar on Dempster (1988): "The Spacing Effect: A Case Study in the Failure to Apply the Results of Psychological Research"; Feb 26 @ 9AM PST (Patreon)

tl;dr: join me (via Google Hangout) on Sunday, Feb 26th at 9AM PST to discuss Dempster's classic paper on why the spacing effect isn't deployed in educational settings. Please read the paper before attending; bring your noticings, wonderings, and ideas. [GCal]

In 1988, Frank Dempster tackled the question: the spacing effect is one of the best-established results of psychological science… so why hasn't it changed anything in education?

It's deliciously ironic that a) this is one of the most-cited papers for academics investigating memory systems; and b) despite being published the year I was born, roughly nothing has changed in the spacing effect's deployment in educational settings.

I think this paper gets a lot of things right—yet ignores what might be the most important barriers. I've been meaning for a while to write a "contra Dempster" essay, and that's always a nice reason to convene a discussion. Join me!