The section on ratios and proportion is wrapped up. Before moving on to percents, there will be a brief foray into more involved equations (variables on both sides, multi-step problems, and solving word problems with algebra).
Before we get into any of that, however, this might be a good time to talk about how do we keep previously taught skills and concepts fresh. I have been presenting examples of warm-ups with which each lesson begins, which bring in problem types students have seen, as well as problems that presage and serve as a segue to the day’s lesson.
The repetition of previously seen problem types is known as retrieval practice. One teacher I worked with had a system which I neglected to try. She had a weekly quiz given every Friday. It covered various problem types encountered since the beginning of the school year. I was reticent to try this because I guarded my instructional time and couldn’t see yielding any more when I already had to deal with short day Wednesdays (when periods were shortened to 45 minutes to allow for staff meetings or other activities), assemblies, field trips and the many other hurdles that make planning out the school year into a game of Battleship.
Except on days when I would give a test or quiz, I had students do warm-up problems which took about ten minutes of class time, depending on the complexity of the problems. I included at most five problems. This doesn’t leave a lot of room for variety. But one possibility is to devote more time (say fifteen minutes) on Fridays for a mini-quiz. The mini-quiz would be an extended warm-up of ten to fifteen questions and could count for a small part (e.g. five percent) of a student’s grade. Since I counted warm-ups as five percent of a student’s grade, the mini-quiz presents no more of a threat than a warm-up and does not carry the same level of anxiety as a test or a quiz.
If I were still teaching, that is what I would do.
Distributed practice isn't a term I'm really familiar with. I know and use the term spaced practice which is distributing your practice over a number of days with varying and sometimes increasing intervals between the practice sessions instead of cramming in one long session. I also know and use the term interleaving which is varying the practice problems or tasks (solving problems or carrying out tasks with different concepts, procedures, ...) instead of massing practise on one type of problem or task (concept, procedure, ...) until mastery and then going on to the next type of problem or task.