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Make it Stick by Peter Brown

1 - Learning is Misunderstood

• The things we learn must be accessible later on when we need it
• As we are exposed to greater challenges and more complex experiences, we need to have a solid foundation to continue thriving
• Effortful learning is most effective
• We suck at judging our progress when learning
• Never re-read or mass practice ever again
  • Produces a false senese of mastery

8 - Make it Stick

Students

• Struggling to learn concepts shows effort, which is important in truly learning something

• Effortful learning changes our brain, forms new connections, builds mental models

• Retrieval practice

  • Periodically ask yourself questions:
    1. What are the key ideas?
    2. What terms or ideas are new to me?
    3. How would I define them?
    4. How do the ideas relate to what I already know?

• Quizzing helps show room for improvement through tangible data

  • Ebbinghaus forgetting curve

• Feeling frustrated with your inability to remember something makes you more motivated to better remember it when you revisit the topic

  • Being rusty means that we have started to forget the topics, which is the perfect time to strengthen our connections
    • If remembering is effortless, that means there is little room for further improvement

• Few minutes, day of, week of, month of

  • Less optimal but more realistic
  • Mastered topics should still be revisited every few months

• Interleaving study/problem types helps us alternate between the different areas of our memory

  • Instead of cramming all the similar questions in one go:
    • Continue doing similar problems until you understand the basic principles
      • Include the rest throughout your future study regimens mixed in with other kinds of questions
  • Our intuition wants us to master something before moving on, but mixing up problems helps us discriminate between types (different characteristics), allowing us to swiftly apply the appropriate solutions
  • Blocked practice feels productive, but it is not as effective

• Elaboration is adding additional layers of meaning in new material

  • ex) Relating information, teaching information, paraphrasing information, metaphors/imagery

• Generation is the acceptance and reception of new learning

  • Our desire to answer and solve things before knowing the solution
    • ex) fill in the blanks, cloze cards, solving problems before class
  • Experiental learning is when we learn along the way, finding solutions as we encounter obstacles

• Reflection is a mix of retrieval and elaboration

  • What went well? What could have gone better? What does it remind you of? What could help with mastering the concepts?

• Calibration is aligning judgements with what we know and don’t know

  • Avoids illusions of mastery
  • ex) Objective machines like textbooks
  • Saying we know something and not writing it adds to the illusion of mastery

• Mnemonic devices help memorize groups of information

• It’s important to know what to spend your study hours on

• To engage in deep learning, it’s best to slow down and find meaning in what you read

• Read before lectures

• Imagine the possible test questions and think of answers

• Ask questions to yourself, then ask questions to the professor if you don’t understand

• Store bolded terms and ensures rememberance

• Take tests and revisits topics of struggle

• Create a personalized study guide

• Review and practice should be throughout the course

Tips/Practices for Teaching

1. Be transparent about your intentions
   • Share information about the bad like illusion of mastery, rote memorization, and cramming
   • Ask the audience questions and get them to just think about it
     • Our memory is like a forest and our ideas are trees
       • The more times we create a path to a certain tree, the easier it will be to recall
     • Get 3 people to propose their ideas, see where everyone stands, and get people to converse with someone who has differing beliefs
2. Testing groups are where everyone is trying to work through questions, practicing active recall and discussion to come up with the solutions
   • Find ideas of struggle and ask someone knowledgeable in the area to explain it
3. Free recall
   • Spend some time writing down everything they remember for 10 minutes
   • Focus on the material they forgot
4. Summary sheets
   • Have students hand in summary sheets that have the different ideas connect with each other
5. Learning paragraphs
   • Can be about material or just reflection
   • Helps understand where students are at
6. Acknowledge the different levels of understanding
7. Having a diversified structure of events

• If you suck at tutoring people, there’s plenty of resources to help them learn
  • You can be just as effective if you can actively get them to exercise and reflect on their knowledge
  • Assign section readings and use the time during tutoring sessions to find areas of weakness and clarify areas of conclusion

Tips for Trainers

• Get students to come up with their own solutions
  • You should help cultivate, not tell
• In marketing, ask about FORE:
  1. Family
  2. Occupation
  3. Recreation
  4. Enjoyment

References:

Created:: {{0amt0:2021-06-06}} 11:31