Strategic repetition transforms mobile computing education: students master challenging topics through distributed practice

When skilled programming students consistently struggle with mobile-specific concepts, the solution isn't teaching harder it's teaching smarter through strategic repetition across multiple contexts.

The Project

Helmine Serban from the School of Interactive Arts and Technology (SIAT) identified eight consistently challenging topics in mobile computing education and completely restructured her IAT359 course to ensure students encounter these concepts repeatedly throughout the semester. Rather than teaching complex topics, the redesigned course integrated them across multiple modules in varied contexts.

The approach involved developing purpose-built demonstration applications for each challenging topic at natural integration points throughout the semester, ensuring students experience the same fundamental concepts through different practical applications.

Project Highlights

Repeated exposure built genuine mastery. Student survey data showed significant improvement in understanding consistently throughout the course and core concepts achieved high mastery levels due to the continuous reinforcement.

Context diversity enhanced learning transfer. When students encountered a core concept in various scenarios, they developed a better understanding that transferred to novel situations, moving beyond simply memorized procedures to conceptual understanding.

Looking Ahead

Serban plans to extend this strategic repetition model to other technically challenging courses. The approach demonstrates that when students struggle with discipline-specific concepts, distributed practice and repetition of concepts across varied contexts can be more effective than concentrated instruction.