Linda Stockman

Capstone: Access to Education

May 10, 2020

Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning​ By Peter C. Brown, Mark A. McDaniel

describes how the methods we typically use to learn are proven to be ineffective. These methods

mainly include

reviewing material,

again and again, or

practicing the same skill

for hours. ​Make it Stick:

The Science of

Successful Learning

explains why these

methods are mainstream

in the education

community but also prove to not be the most useful way to learn the material. The book is more

practical than science. However, the authors do reference research to support their claims. Most

concepts in this book are considered new and not yet being used consistently in schools. For

instance, forgetting is considered good. It is good when we space out learning then forget enough

that we have to retrieve it later and relearn it. Another, changing up topics frequently is also

effective—just when we think we are beginning to understand the lesson, it’s a good time to

move on to another topic.

around learning techniques

that are not usually used by

students or teachers. This

book is also interesting to

read because the authors

have embedded some of

the learning methods

described in the book in the

writing. For example, they

use “​interleaving​”, which is

a method of introducing a new idea or concept, then layering in an additional concept. For

instance concept ‘a’ is introduced in a chapter, and just when the reader starts to get used to it,

the authors switch to the concept ‘b’. Concepts ‘a’ and ‘b’ are interleaved throughout the book

and turning up in subsequent

chapters with different examples to

illustrate each. This technique

represents two methods authors

described in the book, one is to

mix it up and space-out content

frequently before you have

mastered the material. Then review

concepts when you’re on

the brink of forgetting

them altogether. Going

back to concepts, again

and again, embeds the

knowledge and skills into

the reader’s mind. This

technique is far more

effective than

concentrated study sessions of re-reading, reviewing, and highlighting text passages.

The most important topics that I noticed in the book are all related to the perceived idea

of learning. Learning is

more useful when it

requires effort. The idea of

‘embrace difficulties’

describes difficult learning

as desirable because of the

idea that the brain encodes

and consolidates learning.

This type of learning is

strengthened through
mental representations associated with retrieval and making connections. The main theory that is

debunked is there is no empirical research that supports the idea that learning is more effective

when it is taught of the

preferred style of learning

like auditory, visual, etc.

Students are susceptible to

the ‘illusion of knowing’.

The illusion of knowledge

is being aware of what

one still needs to learn, or

what skill needs

developing. This is also known as ​metacognition​, and it’s part of overcoming the illusion of

knowledge.​ ​Educators play a critical role in helping students overcome the illusion of knowledge

by providing constructive

feedback. Learning

requires a foundation of

knowledge, which

supports the idea that we

do need to learn

foundational concepts. It

seems that when

knowledge is deeply
entrenched in long-term memory it supports the learner’s ability to make connections with other

knowledge held in their memory.

I decided to do more research about this book and I found the authors that created a

google drive that has all of

their research information

that is included in the book.

The authors created sketches

of each summary of each

chapter that outlines their

discoveries. Each of these

posters nicely outlines the

ideas of the books and their

main points. Each chart also shows the thought process the authors went through when they were

writing the book. These helped me understand the way the book was formed and the ideas they

were trying to describe.