Make It Stick (Part I)

Author

Matt Karamazov
August 23, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 23 minutes

 YOUTUBE ðŸ“š THE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE ðŸ“š PATREON

*Ambitious students who want to gain a distinct competitive advantage in the modern academic environment, or those students who simply want to pass all their exams with flying colors and with much less time spent studying.

*Passionate, dedicated teachers who wish to bring the latest science and most up-to-date pedagogical techniques into their classrooms and lecture halls, thereby maximizing the probability of success of the students entrusted to their care.

*Lifelong learners who want to gain mastery, or at least make astounding progress, in a new pursuit or activity as quickly as possible, and in the most efficient way possible too.

“It comes down to the simple but no less profound truth that effortful learning changes the brain, building new connections and capability.

This single fact - that our intellectual abilities are not fixed from birth but are, to a considerable degree, ours to shape - is a resounding answer to the nagging voice that too often asks us, 'Why bother?'

We make the effort because the effort itself extends the boundaries of our abilities. What we do shapes who we become and what we're capable of doing. The more we do, the more we can do."

-Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, and Mark A. McDaniel, Make It Stick

Everything you want in life is on the other side of effort and sacrifice. In life, we appreciate what we worked hardest for, and in education, we remember what we struggled to learn.

That's one of the core messages in Make It Stick, which represents the gold standard when it comes to books about effective study strategies and efficient learning.

It's also one of the only scholarly books on learning to contain the word "motherf*****," but it's only used in the context of one of many spectacular examples of learning in action that makes this book so special!

Basically, we remember the information that we recall to mind most frequently, and the more effortful it is to do so, the more entrenched it becomes in our minds and the less likely we are to forget it when we need to use it.

This is known as a "desirable difficulty," which is one of many counterintuitive ideas you'll encounter across the landscape of the science of successful learning. It means that instead of making learning easier, we need to make learning harder if we want it to stick.

Even though this is true, well-meaning teachers and educators all over the world persist in perpetuating the use of ineffective and inefficient study strategies that they think are working but are actually next to useless. The science is ahead of the application in most cases, but if you read Make It Stick, you'll have a major competitive advantage over most people.

Something like 80 percent of all students (in some surveys) say that their primary study strategy is rereading their textbooks and highlighted notes, which is actually one of the least effective study strategies out there. And don't even get the authors started on "learning styles" theory!

The fact is that the more your brain has to work, the deeper it will entrench new learning and the more likely you will be able to recall it when you need it.

As we'll explore later on, there are several illusions of knowing that make it seem as though learning has taken place when it really hasn't. And there are far more effective things you can be doing to study and improve than cramming, rereading, highlighting, or practicing the same move over and over and over again.

At the end of the day, the universe rewards effort, exertion, and striving. We need to go beyond what we think we can do if we want to find out how far we can really go.

This same theme - the hardest path usually being the best - shows up again and again in life, and Make It Stick will show you how applying that wisdom to your studying and your practicing will allow you to reach levels of mastery that are simply unavailable to people who aren't familiar with the science of successful learning.

#1: We Are Only Beginning to Understand What the Human Brain Can Do

“We have been raised to think that the brain is hardwired and our intellectual potential is more or less set from birth. We now know otherwise.

Average IQs have risen over the past century with changes in living conditions. When people suffer brain damage from strokes or accidents, scientists have seen the brain somehow reassign duties so that adjacent networks of neurons take over the work of damaged areas, enabling people to regain lost capacities.

Competitions between 'memory athletes' like James Paterson and Nelson Dellis have emerged as an international sport among people who have trained themselves to perform astonishing acts of recall.

Expert performance in medicine, science, music, chess, or sports has been shown to be the product not just of innate gifts, as had long been thought, but of skills laid down layer by layer, through thousands of hours of dedicated practice.

In short, research and the modern record have shown that we and our brains are capable of much greater feats than scientists would have thought possible even a few decades ago."

At the turn of the 20th century, numerous intelligent and knowledgeable people actually claimed that all conceivable human progress had already been made. And that was before the age of computers, microchips, biomedicine...even before Amazon Prime! Human beings are notoriously bad at guessing where our limits actually lie.

Perhaps the gains we can make in intelligence, learning, and academic achievement aren't infinite, but they're certainly larger than most people believe. We simply don't know the endpoint, the final limit, of human mental and physical achievement.

The first step toward reaching and expanding those limits is the most important: realizing that the possibility exists, and realizing that if we put in the work, we are capable of so much more than perhaps we've ever given ourselves credit for.

If you want to learn more about how we've made such astounding progress over the last few centuries in the areas of well-being and human potential, the book breakdowns for Enlightenment Now, by Steven Pinker, and Progress, by Johan Norberg are two excellent places to start.

#2: Most Students Today Are Studying Incorrectly (Or at Least Inefficiently)

“Rereading text and massed practice of a skill or new knowledge are by far the preferred study strategies of learners of all stripes, but they're also among the least productive.

By massed practice, we mean the single-minded, rapid-fire repetition of something you're trying to burn into memory, the 'practice-practice-practice' of conventional wisdom. Cramming for exams is an example.

Rereading and massed practice give rise to feelings of fluency that are taken to be signs of mastery, but for true mastery or durability these strategies are largely a waste of time."

In some surveys, more than 80 percent of students reported that their number one study strategy was the practice of rereading their textbooks, even though this is perhaps one of the least effective study strategies ever devised.

Students persist in this inefficient and ineffective way because rereading feels like it should work. It feels as though they are learning when they're actually not - or at least not as well as they could be learning if they switched to some of the more effective strategies outlined in Make It Stick.

Several illusions of knowing explain why these ineffective strategies seem to work. The first is that we mistake material that we're familiar with for material that we actually know. We recognize it, but if we didn't have our notes right in front of us, we couldn't reproduce that knowledge on a test or in the field.

The other illusion has to do with how easily we reread text or repeat a certain movement. Once we've read something several times, we can probably skim through it pretty fast and feel as though we've actually learned it, but that isn't necessarily true.

The takeaway is to ditch the practice of spending (wasting) long hours rereading, cramming, and highlighting, and instead practice some of the science-backed study techniques we'll cover later in this breakdown.

#3: How Learning Really Works

“Learning is at least a three-step process: initial encoding of information is held in short-term working memory before being consolidated into a cohesive representation of knowledge in long-term memory.

Consolidation reorganizes and stabilizes memory traces, gives them meaning, and makes connections to past experiences and to other knowledge already stored in long-term memory.

Retrieval updates learning and enables you to apply it when you need it."

The first step in the learning process (as it happens in the brain) is the encoding of new information as it is held in short-term memory immediately after being exposed to it. This is the span of time where new learning is in the greatest danger of being lost. It's so fresh and new that a lot can go wrong during the encoding process.

However, with effective study, new knowledge is consolidated into long-term memory where the goal is to make it "stickier." The consolidation process stabilizes new learning, associating it with knowledge and information you already have and ensuring that it becomes entrenched. More on this process later.

The third step is then retrieval - which is a huge theme in this book - where you periodically recall knowledge and learning and where you interrupt the forgetting process.

"Knowing" something is pretty useless if you can't find that knowledge and apply it when and where you need it, so a big part of retrieval is ensuring that you also have ready access to your new learning in the situations that call for it.

#4: Two Essential Keys to Effective Learning

“Durable, robust learning requires that we do two things. First, as we recode and consolidate new material from short-term memory into long-term memory, we must anchor it there securely.

Second, we must associate the material with a diverse set of cues that will make us adept at recalling the knowledge later. Having effective retrieval cues is an aspect of learning that often goes overlooked. The task is more than committing knowledge to memory. Being able to retrieve it when we need it is just as important."

We talked about this in Key Idea #3 above, but a major priority when learning anything new that we want to recall later is securing it in our long-term memory. That's always the goal; we must never lose sight of that.

But also, and just as important, is that we need to be able to get to it later. That's an entirely different skill set, and it's done by creating a series of cues and associations between what we've just learned and what we already know.

In exactly the same way as passing by a bag of chips can trigger your craving for those chips, a strong cue makes you remember something that you want to remember. See the chips, want the chips. See the right hook coming, put your left hand up to block it. Same thing.

Associations work in a similar way in that something new that you've learned is connected to something you already know. For example, your background knowledge of 20th-century British history can help you understand some of the nuances of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray.

The key is to be able to call up your new learning when you need it, as we've discussed. Right now, it's crucial to note that these processes take time and that learning doesn't just happen when viewing new material for the first time.

You need to make sure you're getting adequate sleep, staying hydrated, testing yourself, trying to recall knowledge from memory later, etc. As the authors explain:

“It appears that embedding new learning in long-term memory requires a process of consolidation, in which memory traces (the brain's representations of new learning) are strengthened, given meaning, and connected to prior knowledge - a process that unfolds over hours and may take several days."

#5: Learning is Unlimited (But There's a Catch)

“There’s virtually no limit to how much learning we can remember as long as we relate it to what we already know. In fact, because new learning depends on prior learning, the more we learn, the more possible connections we create for further learning.

Our retrieval capacity, though, is severely limited. Most of what we've learned is not accessible to us at any given moment. This limitation on retrieval is helpful to us: if every memory were always readily to hand, you would have a hard time sorting through the sheer volume of material to put your finger on the knowledge you need at the moment."

There are more connections in the human brain than there are stars in our Milky Way galaxy; as for individual neurons, we each have about 100,000,000,000 of them. Thus, you'll never be able to say, "I'm sorry, I can't learn any more. My brain is full!"

Despite Homer Simpson's protestations that taking that home wine-making course caused him to forget how to drive (he was drunk), learning something new doesn't automatically push something else out of your brain. We can always learn more.

The catch is that we can't always access it any time we want. However, the authors of Make It Stick make the case that if we did possess such an ability, it would be mayhem.

Every single thing that we know or had ever learned would constantly be pushing and struggling to get to the front of our conscious awareness and we'd never be able to pick out that one specific thing we need to remember right now so that we could use it in this particular situation.

Sometimes, the brain is smarter than we are (if that makes sense!), and over the course of evolution, we've been endowed with the ability to recall appropriate knowledge and information through a system of cues, associations, and triggers, which makes us much more efficient.

The takeaway? Never stop learning! Your brain can handle it, and in order to make this process more efficient, we can learn to execute some of the advanced learning strategies explained here in this breakdown.

#6: Practice Retrieving Knowledge from Memory

“The act of retrieving learning from memory has two profound benefits. One, it tells you what you know and don't know, and therefore where to focus further study to improve the areas where you're weak.

Two, recalling what you have learned causes your brain to reconsolidate the memory, which strengthens its connections to what you already know and makes it easier to recall in the future. In effect, retrieval - testing - interrupts forgetting."

Retrieval practice (sometimes called forced recall) is one of the most important ideas in the entire book and it's basically the foundation of all learning. Yes, it's that important, and it is something you must do if you want to learn anything more effectively and efficiently.

The idea is a very simple one: you remember what you recall to mind most frequently.

Additionally, however, the more effortful it is for you to recall something, the stronger it becomes installed in your mind for later use. In life, we appreciate what we worked hardest for, and in education, we remember what we struggled to learn. If you take just one thing away from this breakdown, make it that.

But another benefit that retrieval practice has is that it allows us to see what we haven't learned as well, and then take steps to remember it better. If we try to recall something without looking at our notes and find that we can't, then that's a clue that we need to go back and study that particular information more closely and then test ourselves on it again.

While most students will be wasting time rereading their textbooks and studying the same things repeatedly in the same sequence, you'll be studying smarter. Most importantly, you'll be taking active steps to interrupt the forgetting process, as the authors explain here:

“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, but the lesson is clear: a central challenge to improving the way we learn is finding a way to interrupt the process of forgetting."

#7: Practice Spaced Repetition

“When practice is spaced, interleaved, and varied, it requires more effort. You feel the increased effort, but not the benefits the effort produces. Learning feels slower from this kind of practice, and you don't get the rapid improvements and affirmations you're accustomed to seeing from massed practice."

Spaced repetition has earned its place as one of the most effective study strategies of all time, and it's closely related to retrieval. The basic idea is that you allow some time to pass before testing yourself on the material you've just learned.

Critical to this process is the fact that, as more time elapses between study sessions, you're going to experience some inevitable forgetting of the material you've been studying. This is normal, and you can actually use this to your advantage.

When learning is more effortful - when it's harder to recall what you've learned, because the process of forgetting has set in - new knowledge becomes anchored more securely in your long-term memory.

So you want to experience a little bit of forgetting so that you create some desirable difficulty in your studying which will cause you to learn even better. Again, this is all counterintuitive stuff that doesn't feel like it's working in the moment, but it is!

You also want to practice interleaving and vary your practice so that you're not repeating everything in the same order every time. If massed practice is hitting 100 fastballs in a row before moving on to hitting 100 curveballs in a row, varied practice means switching up the pitches and keeping yourself alert so that you never know what's coming next.

Interleaving is done by studying, say, English Literature, and then putting those textbooks away for a while and then picking up your Mathematics textbooks, before switching again to Geography, then back to English, then to Chemistry, etc.

As we've discussed before, the fact that it's harder to do is good; if you feel as though it's all coming easy and you recognize all the material without putting forth much effort in recalling it, then it may be a sign that you're falling victim to one of the illusions of knowing from Key Idea #2.

It's similar to the fact that at the gym if you're not constantly challenging yourself with heavier and heavier weights, your muscles aren't going to grow. When studying is easy, it's a sign that the weights aren't heavy enough.

#8: Practice Reflection to Consolidate New Learning

“Reflection can involve several cognitive activities we have discussed that lead to stronger learning. These include retrieval (recalling recently learned knowledge to mind), elaboration (for example, connecting new knowledge to what you already know), and generation (for example, rephrasing key ideas in your own words or visualizing and mentally rehearsing what you might do differently next time)."

The most advanced students are active participants in the subjects that they're learning about, and a big part of that is making reflection part of their regular practice.

By reflection, the authors mean any activity that involves the student taking a step back from the prepared material, and making it their own. Retrieval is certainly part of it, but elaboration is critically important too (Key Idea #9), as well as putting new knowledge in your own words and thereby making it more relevant to you and less likely to fade quickly over time.

Reflection isn't just applicable to more intellectual pursuits either. It's also incredibly valuable in the context of evaluating any prior performance, running through what happened, and rehearsing your next steps.

On the football field, in the weight room, at the piano, elite performers everywhere are constantly reflecting on what went well, what could have gone better, and how they will respond to specific situations in the future.

#9: Practice Elaboration for Even Stronger Learning

“How ably you can explain a text is an excellent cue for judging comprehension, because you must recall the salient points from memory, put them into your own words, and explain why they are significant - how they relate to the larger subject."

When you teach something, you get to learn it twice. Even writing this breakdown is helping to consolidate the information from Make It Stick inside my brain, and I also make it a practice to write and speak about every book that I finish. One of the best ways to learn anything is to teach it to someone else.

That's what elaboration involves, and to do it effectively you need to take whatever it is that you've been learning, make it relevant and "sticky" to you by putting it into your own words, and then externalize your knowledge by sharing with others.

#10: Children Should Be Tested More, Not Less

“Students who have been quizzed have a double advantage over those who have not: a more accurate sense of what they know and don't know, and the strengthening of learning that accrues from retrieval practice."

At the classroom level, students would benefit immensely from receiving additional quizzes to test their current knowledge.

It's the same for the whole class as it is for the individual: they will strengthen and solidify their learning and expose their own weaknesses so they know where they need to place additional attention while studying.

As the authors explain in the quote below, quizzes don't have to make up a significant portion of the students' total grades in order to be effective study tools. It can also bring together an entire semester's worth of knowledge and insight:

“Most important is to make frequent use of testing and retrieval practice to verify what you really do know versus what you think you know.

Frequent low-stakes quizzes in class help the instructor verify that students are in fact learning as well as they appear to be and reveal the areas where extra attention is needed.

Doing cumulative quizzing is especially powerful for consolidating learning and knitting the concepts from one stage of a course into new material encountered later."

I’ve been taking detailed notes from every single book I’ve ever read since 2014, and they’re all here on my Patreon for just $1.

They’re updated monthly (sometimes twice a month), and by supporting me on Patreon you’ll also be able to keep up with everything I’m reading and learning, and get my best notes, takeaways, and summaries from every book that I finish.

More Patreon rewards are available as well, like being mentioned by name in all my YouTube videos, Patron-only discounts, special offers, and more.

Reply

or to participate.