Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning

This is a great text for teachers. Provides research based strategies and practices that are practical and easy to incorporate in all content areas.

Make It Stick is a great book. It is a must read for everyone whether you recently graduated high school or am embarking on pursuing higher education later in life. As a graduate student myself, I struggled with bad study habits and sought guidance from my school's counseling and education department as to how to fix those bad study habits. Unfortunately, they weren't able to give me any resources that were helpful enough for me to continue with school without running into problems. After reading another book (Deep Work by Cal Newport) that emphasized that if a person wants to be successful in the economy of tomorrow they must be able to produce at an elite level (in terms of quality and speed) and quickly master hard things, I tried to answer the question "What is the best way to lean?" After all, the Newport emphasized that if you can't learn you can't produce and if you can't produce you can't thrive. So the question still remains. What is the best way to learn? That's when I found Make It Stick. Make It Stick emphasizes psychology based studies that have shown to be effective in learning. While I have discussed the contents of this book with a non-tenured professor in biology at my local university who claims that most of the material in Make It Stick is still theoretical, I have found that that professor hasn't a leg to stand on. One fine point Make It Stick mentions (with an empirical study to back it up) is that "when it comes to learning, what we choose to do is guided by our judgments of what works and what doesn't, and we are easily misled (Brown et al, 2014)." That point is reiterated in a TEDx Talk ([...]) about the myth of learning styles (which is also talked about in the Make It Stick). We must question learning strategies (like learning styles) that are widely accepted when there is no empirical evidence to suggest that they work and embrace those that do. We must humble ourselves and embrace the notion that our incompetence may be causing us to overestimate our own competence (Dunning-Kruger effect also discussed in Make It Stick) or else we will suffer the consequences when we feel we are not being taught they way we should be taught (one of the big arguments for learning styles) and we simply stop trying because of that. Make It Stick will challenge you. Effective learning strategies are difficult, slow, and tedious, but they are far more effective than any widely held strategies and approaches. If you were taught to re-read your notes and book, have a bad habit of cramming a couple nights before the big test, or simply believe you have an excellent photographic memory (for which there is no scientific evidence for) then Make It Stick will set you straight.

I bought this book because I have recently become quite interested in memory and learning. I am currently a college student, so my main goal is maximizing the effectiveness of my study time. I seem to be the exact 'target demographic' for this book, so I went in quite excited. As an introduction, this book is an excellent resource. It really takes you through all of the different studies the authors have perused and tells you, specifically, what works and what doesn't. I've read some studies on spaced repetition and active recall in the past, but this book adds interleaved and varied practice, generation, elaboration, and a whole slew of other techniques that have been proven in experiments. I am very grateful that the authors provide ample notes and references to (almost) all claims they make, allowing you to go out and look at the studies yourself. I specifically recommend reading through "Studies in Retention" by Herbert Spitzer [1939] (find it by googling it). It is absolutely amazing how big a difference testing immediately after learning can make. The authors adopt a structure for the book that I found to work quite well: a short introduction that presents the main points succinctly, followed by the meat of the book, containing all of the data and explanation to what was introduced. Finally, they end with a summary/practical advice for readers. This made reading the book quite easy and made the content seem well-organized. However, I cannot give the book 5 stars because I see two major problems. For one, the book is overly verbose. Many times, the authors repeat and repeat what they say, constantly paraphrasing information they have already imparted on their readers. I'm not sure if it only seemed to me to be this way because I'm already somewhat familiar with the field, but they could have definitely done with some more editing. Also, I found many of the anecdotes similarly long and mostly useless. It's easy enough to just skim through these parts, but the book would have had more value to me if it had been cut 50 pages shorter. The real problem that I have with this book is that it fails to mention ANY electronic spaced repetition system (SRS) currently available. SRSs do a fantastic job of scheduling spaced repetition automatically and forcing users to do active recall. With careful application, an individual could use an SRS to implement almost all of the suggestions contained in the book, theoretically maximizing their potential! (This is, in fact, what I aim to do.) And yet, the authors don't talk about Anki, SuperMemo, Mnemosyne, or any other of a host of software/web service packages that are now available online. I think this is a serious disservice to readers, especially considering they mention trying to use the Leitner system, a method that is quite a poor approximation of good spaced repetition. If any readers have read the book and are looking for the best way to start applying the techniques, I URGE you to look into some sort of spaced repetition software. My personal favorite is Anki. In summary, I liked the book and think that those with a somewhat limited knowledge of effective study techniques will benefit the most from reading it. This is something that I wish I had read in high school and applied all throughout college. For those who go on to actually read the book, I hope you will look into using Anki or a similar piece of software to maximize your potential.

Really helping me rethink my approach to my own learning as well as my teaching to be more effective.

Libro mastro sui metodi di studio efficaci ed efficienti !! Da avere assolutamente

Desde que la OCDE viene aplicando sus exámenes PISA ha habido un vacío en técnicas de aprendizaje eficaces y eficientes. Make it stick colabora, con mucho, a llenar ese vacío.

Very good lecture for you to change the way you study and teaching

Gostei do livro pq está bem estruturado, os conceitos e as técnicas são apresentadas de forma fundamentada e clara. Inclui exemplos o que é igualmente positivo. Aprendi bastante com este livro.