Make It Stick – Quick Summary

1-Sentence Description ofMake It Stickby Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, Mark A. McDaniel

Concrete techniques for becoming a more productive learner.

1. Retrieving – Practice retrieving new and old learning. Quiz yourself. 2. Spacing – Space out your retrieval practice, leave time to forget in between practice sessions. 3. Interleaving -Alternate working on different problems facilitates spacing and forgetting (making learning more difficult, which improves learning). 4. Elaboration – Try to find additional layers of meaning in the new material. 5. Generation – Answer a question or solve a problem before looking at the answer (experiential learning). 6. Reflection – Combine retrieval practice and elaboration that adds layers to learning new material. Ask your self questions. 7. Calibration – To avoid various cognitive illusions, use an objective instrument to adjust your sense of what you know and don’t know. 8. Mnemonic devices – Build memory palaces to help yourself retrieve what you have learned.

if we stop thinking of testing as a dipstick to measure learning—if we think of it as practicing retrieval of learning from memory rather than “testing,” we open ourselves to another possibility: the use of testing as a tool for learning.

In very short order we lose something like 70 percent of what we’ve just heard or read. After that, forgetting begins to slow, and the last 30 percent or so falls away more slowly,

We’ve long known that the act of retrieving knowledge from memory has the effect of making that knowledge easier to call up again in the future.

A very convincing and readable book about how to better learn and, as an extension, how to better teach. Two psychologists and (thankfully) one writer present the latest research on learning and, in so doing, refutes some of our most popular learning techniques (such as ‘practice, practice, practice’ and my favorite ‘read and reread’). At the end of the book, the following eight concrete techniques are offered

A bit tedious, with way too many examples; I suppose that was intentional, as it seemed to emulate the techniques this work talks about. The last chapter is great and quite informative though.

Summary 1

Summary 2

YARPP List

Related posts:

1. Will It Fly Summary (7/10)
2. Modern Man in Search of a Soul Summary (8/10)
3. Part 2: Stir Up The Transgressive and Taboo (The Art of Seduction)
4. Chapter 19: And They Lived Happily Every After (Sapiens)