What is the drip feed in Bedrock?

Bedrock’s Core Curriculum automatically stops learners from completing too much work in a day. This is called the ‘drip feed.’

Cognitive overload

Research shows us that exposing someone to too much learning material in one go can cause something called cognitive overload. This stops the learner being able to absorb any further learning material effectively.

One way of combating cognitive overload is spaced learning. This is where learning material is spaced out over a set amount of time to reduce the risk of overload. In Bedrock, we call this the ‘drip feed.’

Bedrock’s drip feed in Vocabulary

In Bedrock Vocabulary, the drip feed will automatically prevent learners from continuing their learning journey after they have done any of the following in one day:

• Completed two Vocabulary lessons in one block
• Completed one lesson and one pre or post test
• Completed the ‘Alpha Test’

Bedrock’s drip feed will stop learners from completing any more lessons in that block until the next day, when they can resume their learning. The drip feed notification looks like this; it is a banner on the ‘Learner Dashboard.’

While learners wait for the drip feed pause to end, they can still access other blocks: all learners can access ‘The Library’ and depending on your subscription, learners can access the ‘Common Roots,’ ‘Jekyll & Hyde,’ or ‘GCSE English’ curricula. Alternatively, they can swap learning areas and continue learning in Grammar or Mapper.

Bedrock’s drip feed in Grammar

Just like in Vocabulary, the drip feed in Grammar will prevent learners continuing after they have done one of the following:

• Completed two lessons in Grammar Foundations or Advanced Grammar
• Completed one lesson and one pre or post test
• Completed the ‘Holistic Assessment’ in either Grammar Foundations or Advanced Grammar

If learners start with Grammar, they can swap learning areas to continue their learning in Vocabulary.

Pausing the drip feed

For the best learning experience, we recommend that learners complete up to two lessons over a 24-hour period to avoid cognitive overload.

However, if you would like to override the drip feed for your class for a short period of time, such as during a school lesson, you can do this in your ‘Teacher Dashboard.’

1. Click on the three-dots button next to your chosen class
   
2. Select ‘Pause class drip feed’
   
3. Click ‘Confirm’ to pause the drip feed for two hours
   
4. Ask your learners to log out and back in. They can now resume their learning journey
   

You can also do this for individual learners by clicking on their class in the ‘Class database’ tab and repeating the process above for the chosen learner.

It is important to note that manually pausing the drip feed will not be possible when the Holistic Assessment is taken by learners. It will still automatically activate. This is because both Grammar Foundations and Advanced Grammar start with a pre-test, and we don’t want learners to complete back to back assessments due to the potential impact on performance and engagement.