Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning

“We are poor judges of when we are learning well and when we’re not.”

The authors continually explain that the best learning practices are counterintuitive and go against common practice in Western education systems. As individuals are subjective when it comes to gauging their own learning, they often mistake a struggle to remember information as a sign that learning isn’t working instead of understanding effort as an integral part of the process. Important Quotes 1-2 intersect: People are poor judges of learning because they misunderstand learning.

“Elaboration is the process of giving new material meaning by expressing it in your own words and connecting it with what you already know. The more you can explain about the way your new learning relates to your prior knowledge, the stronger your grasp of the new learning will be, and the more connections you create that will help you remember it later.”

A suggested learning strategy, elaborating on new material—explaining it in one’s own words and making connections with prior knowledge—is both effortful and productive. Another key takeaway from this quote is “meaning”—as learning requires meaningful engagement. If information does not seem important, it is much harder to learn. Elaboration is one strategy that learners can use to imbue new content with meaning and relevance.

“If rereading is largely ineffective, why do students favor it? One reason may be that they’re getting bad study advice. But there’s another, subtler way they’re pushed toward this method of review, the phenomenon mentioned earlier: rising familiarity with a text and fluency in reading it can create an illusion of mastery.”

The authors explore why effective learning is counterintuitive. They don’t attribute all faulty approaches to learning to the education system, but rather, they consider how people think and how this can interfere with the process (for example, rereading can create an illusion of comprehension). Enough familiarity with new material can allow recitation, but recitation does not equal understanding. In order to learn best, people have to recognize these common pitfalls.

“Reflection can involve several cognitive activities that lead to stronger learning: retrieving knowledge and earlier training from memory, connecting these to new experiences, and visualizing and mentally rehearsing what you might do differently next time.”

The authors advocate personal reflection as an essential part of the learning process because it is active, effortful, and combines different practices that all help information “stick” in the brain. Like many other strategies for enduring learning, personal reflection often occurs between more obvious moments of conventional learning. For example, Chapter 2 opens with anecdotes about a neurosurgeon who engages in personal reflection between classes and surgeries. This in-between helps him become a better doctor as much as his continual collection of new information and practice in surgery do.

“The frustration many people feel toward standardized, ‘dipstick’ tests given for the sole purpose of measuring learning is understandable, but it steers us away from appreciating one of the most potent learning tools available to us. Pitting the learning of basic knowledge against the development of creative thinking is a false choice. Both need to be cultivated. The stronger one’s knowledge about the subject at hand, the more nuanced one’s creativity can be in addressing a new problem. Just as knowledge amounts to little without the exercise of ingenuity and imagination, creativity absent a sturdy foundation of knowledge builds a shaky house.”

The authors address two learning strategies about which there is much confusion and frustration: memorization and testing (which, in many schools, often go hand in hand). There is a place for memorization and testing, if implemented properly, but people resist these practices for understandable reasons. As the authors explain, many practices build durable knowledge, and, when paired, do so quite effectively. Memorization alone fails to instill information in the brain that can later be recalled and utilized—but if key components are memorized (or recalled, elaborated on, reflected on, paired with other strategies, etc.), it becomes a necessary part of effective learning. The same is true of testing. Ultimately, the best learning comes from genuine mastery of (not merely exposure to) basics and retrieving said basics.

“If learning can be defined as picking up new knowledge or skills and being able to apply them later, then how quickly you pick something up is only part of the story. Is it still there when you need to use it out in the everyday world? While practicing is vital to learning and memory, studies have shown that practice is far more effective when it’s broken into separate periods of training that are spaced out. The rapid gains produced by mass practice are often evident, but the rapid forgetting that follows is not.”

This passage addresses some of the reasons why ineffective learning strategies persist despite studies that disprove their relative value. In formal educational or instructional settings (schools, organized sports, etc.), a constant stream of new information forces students to learn quickly or else they might fall behind. The authors discuss how the speed of learning is not a good indicator of depth of learning. In fact, knowledge or skills acquired without time for spaced and interleaved practice is far less durable. Yet, students and teachers are averse to slow learning and continue to favor massed practice.

“Compared to massed practice, a significant advantage of interleaving and variation is that they help us learn better how to assess context and discriminate between problems, selecting and applying the correct solution from a range of possibilities.”

The durable knowledge that results from interleaved and varied practice enables learners to apply their learning in real-world settings. To apply knowledge or skills to a problem, learners not only need to be able to recall them but assess various contexts in which they might apply. Being able to recognize similarities and differences between problems is a key step in problem-solving—and timely problem-solving at that.

“Beware of the familiarity trap: the feeling that you know something and no longer need to practice it.”

It’s true that skills and knowledge, if used enough, can become reflexive. However, people are prone to assume mastery long before it’s achieved (even deeply ingrained knowledge can be forgotten over time). Learning is strengthened by practice. Familiarity might indicate learning, but it can also be illusionary.

“Learning, remembering, and forgetting work together in interesting ways. 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.”

This quote offers a basic formula for learning and memory. Successive processes of consolidation require spaced recall and the reframing, reinterpretation, or relearning of knowledge to render it meaningful. Repeating this process is one way to anchor information. Cues can also change over time; nuances in cues help the brain establish contexts for the application of specific knowledge.

“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.”

This quote articulates one of the book’s main takeaways. Though learning requires time and work, the process itself augments the brain’s capacity for further learning. The benefits are exponential and outweigh the initial struggle.

“When learners commit errors and are given corrective feedback, the errors are not learned. Even strategies that are highly likely to result in errors, like asking someone to try to solve a problem before being shown how to do it, produce stronger learning and retention of the correct information than more passive learning strategies, provided there is corrective feedback.”

The authors discuss the frequent aversion to errors among students and teachers. There is a general misconception that learners might learn errors if they are permitted to make them—but if learners receive corrective feedback, the error and solution alike will lead to durable learning (as the process is effortful).

“Learning when to trust your intuition and when to question it is a big part of how you improve your competence in the world at large and in any field where you want to be expert. It’s not just the dullards who fall victim. We all do, to varying degrees.”

People often fall victim to “illusions of mastery” that signal a higher degree of competency than is true. While common, this cognitive disconnect between perception and reality can be overcome via external gauges.

“Memory is a reconstruction. We cannot remember every aspect of an event, so we remember those elements that have greatest emotional significance for us, and we fill in the gaps with details of our own that are consistent with our narrative but may be wrong.”

The faulty nature of memory is crucial in recalling learned information and reconsolidating it. It would be unwise for a person to rely on their memories as if they were demonstrable facts; memory gets distorted (information intersects and interferes with key details, outside suggestions can sway a remembered narrative, people convince themselves of events that never happened, etc.). The ability to process information, connecting it to personal experiences and imbibing it with meaning, strengthens the brain.

“Each of us has a large basket of resources in the form of aptitudes, prior knowledge, intelligence, interests, and sense of personal empowerment that shape how we learn and how we overcome our shortcomings. Some of these differences matter a lot—for example, our ability to abstract underlying principles from new experiences and to convert new knowledge into mental structures. Other differences we may think count for a lot, for example having a verbal or visual learning style, actually don’t.”

In Chapter 6, “Get Beyond Learning Styles,” the authors reject the idea that honoring learning preferences results in better-learned knowledge. They don’t wholly reject that people learn differently, but they frame learning styles as less important than other factors that impact people’s abilities to apply information (the effort required to encode and consolidate, etc.). Easy learning that suits learning preferences might not require enough effort to be learned durably—thus why the authors stress efficient strategies for any style.

“Moreover, their review showed that it is more important that the mode of instruction match the nature of the subject being taught: visual instruction for geometry and geography, verbal instruction for poetry, and so on. When instructional style matches the nature of the content, all learners learn better, regardless of their differing preferences for how the material is taught.”

This quote is part of a longer segment in which the authors discuss scientific reviews of learning style theories. A team that carried out such reviews found that there was no evidence to support people learning best when instructional styles match personal preferences. However, instructional style should match the nature of what’s being learned. In this example, visual instruction suits geometry and geography because both subjects require familiarity with shapes, proportions, and relative positioning. Verbal instruction suits poetry because poets write in specific meters, rhythms, and rhyme schemes that are meant to be heard. Logic dictates that a skill like kicking a soccer ball—a physical task—would be best taught physically, even among non-kinesthetic learners.

“The upper limits of your performance in any cognitive or manual skill may be set by factors beyond your control, such as your intelligence and the natural limits of your ability, but most of us can learn to perform nearer to our full potential in most areas by discovering our weaknesses and working to bring them up.”

The authors reject the idea that learners should only play to their identified strengths and avoid difficult approaches or subjects. Studies show that with proper instruction, feedback, and practice, people can improve their performance even in tasks that don’t come naturally. Static testing can prove one’s mastery upon completion while dynamic testing throughout the learning process can identify areas of improvement and refocus efforts.

“Distill the underlying principles; build the structure. If you’re an example learner, study examples two at a time or more, rather than one by one, asking yourself in what ways they are alike and different.”

An important difference between learners is whether a person immediately recognizes underlying principles among examples (“rule learners”) or whether they do so on an individual scale (“example learners”) and have to mass examples before seeing the big picture. Rule learners have the advantage in that their approach is more holistic and readily applicable to new contexts.

“We come into the world endowed with the raw material of our genes, but we become capable through the learning and development of mental models and neural pathways that enable us to reason, solve, and create. 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.”

Both genes and lived experiences shape people’s mental abilities. The authors don’t denounce genes entirely as they play a role in determining base intelligence, but environmental factors will enhance or repress this groundwork. However, humans’ capacity for learning often makes the struggle worth it.

“The neural circuits we use when we take conscious action toward a goal are not the same ones we use when our actions have become automatic, the result of habit. The actions we take by habit are directed from a region located deeper in the brain, the basal ganglia. When we engage in extended training and repetition of some kinds of learning, notably motor skills and sequential tasks, our learning is thought to be recoded in this deeper region, the same area that controls subconscious actions such as eye movements.”

This quote illustrates one of the connections between the physical brain and the mind; the brain changes and develops as the mind does. Enough practice renders information reflexive and subconscious—like habits that don’t require active thought. The authors note that the detailed functionality of the brain is still under investigation by neuroscientists; the conversion of new learning into habit is physiological.

“The options for learning have expanded exponentially. It may be a very small genetic difference that makes one kid more curious than another, but the effect is multiplied in an environment where curiosity is easily piqued and readily satisfied.”

The average IQ of Americans continues to increase. The authors note that some children grow up in circumstances that foster early and constant learning—environments where there are constant stimuli to discover, explore, and question. When children predisposed to curiosity have access to these settings, “environmental multipliers” convert an initial advantage into a significant one over time.

“Another environmental factor that shapes IQ is socioeconomic status and the increased stimulation and nurturing that are more generally available in families who have more resources and education. On average, children from affluent families test higher for IQ than children from impoverished families, and children from impoverished families who are adopted into affluent families score higher on IQ tests than those who are not, regardless of whether the birth parents were of high or low socioeconomic status.”

This quote confirms that access to learning is a major determinant of measured intelligence. (It should also be noted that IQ measures often favor certain types of skills and knowledge over others.) Access to learning requires time, money, and additional resources that not all families can afford. Children from impoverished families are not restricted to a stratum of intelligence by virtue of their genetics alone. Environmental factors shape intelligence, the manmade gap in education being an issue that could be addressed with reallocation of resources.

“Dweck’s research had been triggered by her curiosity over why some people become helpless when they encounter challenges and fail at them, whereas others respond to failure by trying new strategies and redoubling their effort. She found that a fundamental difference between the two responses lies in how a person attributes failure: those who attribute failure to their own inability—‘I’m not intelligent’—become hopeless. Those who interpret failure as the result of insufficient effort or an ineffective strategy dig deeper and try different approaches.”

This quote refers to the work of psychologist Carol Dweck. Her research uncovered proof that attitude is a crucial part of learning. Maintaining a “growth mindset” that utilizes failure (and productive feedback) as motivation is what leads to durable learning. A mindset in which failure indicates an insurmountable barrier will dissuade a person from trying again. In order to be an effective learner, one must understand that their intelligence can expand with effective strategies and the right types of practice.

“In a sense, of course, we’re all lifelong learners. From the moment we’re born we start learning about the world around us through experimentation, trial and error, and random encounters with challenges that require us to recall what we did the last time we found ourselves in a similar circumstance. In other words, the techniques of generation, spaced practice and the like that we present in this book are organic (even if counterintuitive), and it’s not surprising that many people have already discovered their power in the pursuit of interests and careers that require continuous learning.”

In the final chapter, the authors recap learning strategies and their applications in particular settings (schools, the workplace, etc.) for particular learners (students, teachers, trainers, etc.). As a whole, people are lifelong learners as the brain continually learns. Schools and programs emphasize intentional targeted learning, but navigating the world is far more complicated—thus the book’s organic learning strategies.