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Make It Stick (1-4)

  1. Learning is Misunderstood

    • learning: acquiring knowledge / skills and having them readily available

      • requires memory

      • need to keep learning and remembering all our lives

      • learning is an acquired skill

    • claims

      • effortful learning sticks

      • we are poor judges of when we’re learning well or not

      • the most preferred study strategies are the least productive (rereading text, etc)

      • retrieval practice is an effective learning strategy

      • spacing out practice results in longer lasting learning

      • trying to solve something before being taught the solution leads to better learning

    • all new learning requires a foundation of prior knowledge

    • elaboration: giving new material meaning by connecting it with what you already know

    • mental model: mental representation of some external reality

      • people who learn to extract key idea from new material and organize them into mental model have an advantage in learning complex mastery

    • cognitive psychology: basic science of understanding how the mind works

      • conducts empirical research into how people perceive, remember, and think

  2. To Learn, Retrieve

    • reflection: retrieving knowledge and connecting to new experiences and visualizing / mentally rehearsing

    • retrieving knowledge from memory has the effect of making that knowledge easier to remember in the future

    • massed studying (cramming) leads to higher scores on immediate tests but results in easier forgetting than retrieval

    • when retrieval practice is spaced, it leads to stronger long-term retention

    • corrective feedback is useful for students

      • produces better learning of the correct answers

  3. Mix Up Your Practice

    • practice is more effective when broken up into periods of time and spaced out

      • better mastery, longer retention, more versatility

      • requires more effort

      • allows for consolidation of knowledge

    • interleaved practice - mixing of problem types

    • varied practice - improves ability to transfer learning from one situation to different applications

      • also beneficial for motor learning

    • these skills help develop discrimination skills

      • “What type of problem is this?”

    • these principles are broadly applicable

  4. Embrace Difficulties

    • desirable difficulties: short-term impediments that make for stronger learning

    • how learning works:

    • encoding: converting sensory perceptions into meaningful representations in the brain

    • consolidation: strengthening mental representations for long-term memory

      • helps organize and solidify learning

    • retrieval: being able to retrieve information when needed

      • capacity is limited

      • we reassign cues to memories all the time

        • sometimes forgetting is essential to learning

    • effort helps:

      • reconsolidating memory

      • creating mental models

      • broadening mastery

      • fostering conceptual learning

      • improving versatility

    • generative learning: the process of trying to solve a problem without being taught how

    • impediments you can’t overcome become undesirable difficulties

A

Make It Stick (1-4)

  1. Learning is Misunderstood

    • learning: acquiring knowledge / skills and having them readily available

      • requires memory

      • need to keep learning and remembering all our lives

      • learning is an acquired skill

    • claims

      • effortful learning sticks

      • we are poor judges of when we’re learning well or not

      • the most preferred study strategies are the least productive (rereading text, etc)

      • retrieval practice is an effective learning strategy

      • spacing out practice results in longer lasting learning

      • trying to solve something before being taught the solution leads to better learning

    • all new learning requires a foundation of prior knowledge

    • elaboration: giving new material meaning by connecting it with what you already know

    • mental model: mental representation of some external reality

      • people who learn to extract key idea from new material and organize them into mental model have an advantage in learning complex mastery

    • cognitive psychology: basic science of understanding how the mind works

      • conducts empirical research into how people perceive, remember, and think

  2. To Learn, Retrieve

    • reflection: retrieving knowledge and connecting to new experiences and visualizing / mentally rehearsing

    • retrieving knowledge from memory has the effect of making that knowledge easier to remember in the future

    • massed studying (cramming) leads to higher scores on immediate tests but results in easier forgetting than retrieval

    • when retrieval practice is spaced, it leads to stronger long-term retention

    • corrective feedback is useful for students

      • produces better learning of the correct answers

  3. Mix Up Your Practice

    • practice is more effective when broken up into periods of time and spaced out

      • better mastery, longer retention, more versatility

      • requires more effort

      • allows for consolidation of knowledge

    • interleaved practice - mixing of problem types

    • varied practice - improves ability to transfer learning from one situation to different applications

      • also beneficial for motor learning

    • these skills help develop discrimination skills

      • “What type of problem is this?”

    • these principles are broadly applicable

  4. Embrace Difficulties

    • desirable difficulties: short-term impediments that make for stronger learning

    • how learning works:

    • encoding: converting sensory perceptions into meaningful representations in the brain

    • consolidation: strengthening mental representations for long-term memory

      • helps organize and solidify learning

    • retrieval: being able to retrieve information when needed

      • capacity is limited

      • we reassign cues to memories all the time

        • sometimes forgetting is essential to learning

    • effort helps:

      • reconsolidating memory

      • creating mental models

      • broadening mastery

      • fostering conceptual learning

      • improving versatility

    • generative learning: the process of trying to solve a problem without being taught how

    • impediments you can’t overcome become undesirable difficulties