interleaving

name	interleaving
description	Mix related concepts together in practice. Use when the interleaving plan suggests concept pairs or when the user's strategy is "cram_dependent".
user-invocable	false

Interleaved Practice

Instead of drilling one concept at a time, alternate between related concepts. This builds discrimination ability and reduces interference.

Steps

1. Get the interleaving plan from the API:

curl -s -H "x-api-key: $TOKEN" \
  "https://cognition-api.fly.dev/v1/interleaving/plan?user_id=USER_ID"

This returns concept pairs with:

• concept_a, concept_b — the pair
• spectral_distance — how related they are
• transfer_potential — likelihood of positive transfer
• interference_risk — likelihood of confusion
• recommended_mode — compare, contrast, or alternate

2. Generate interleaved questions:

   • Q1: Concept A question
   • Q2: Concept B question
   • Q3: "How does [A] differ from [B]?" (discrimination question)
   • Q4: Concept A again (context switch cost = learning)
   • Q5: "When would you use [A] vs [B]?" (transfer question)

3. The key principle: The difficulty is in the switching, not the questions. Questions can be medium difficulty — the interleaving IS the challenge.

4. Example flow:

Interleaved Practice: SQL JOINs × Array Methods

Q1: What does a LEFT JOIN return when there's no match in the right table? Q2: What does Array.filter() return when no elements match the predicate? Q3: Both LEFT JOIN and filter() handle "no match" cases. How do their approaches differ? Q4: Write a SQL query that returns all users and their orders (including users with no orders). Q5: When would you use a subquery vs a JOIN? When would you use filter() vs reduce()?

5. Record results — tag each question with both concept IDs in the concept_tagging.