{"id":46088,"date":"2021-08-22T05:31:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-22T09:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=46088"},"modified":"2021-08-25T15:59:19","modified_gmt":"2021-08-25T19:59:19","slug":"make-it-stick-quotes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/make-it-stick-quotes\/","title":{"rendered":"Make It Stick: Quotes by Peter C. Brown"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Are you looking for Make It Stick<\/em> quotes? What are some of the most noteworthy passages worth revisiting?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In their book Make It Stick<\/em>, Henry L. Roediger III, Mark A. McDaniel, and Peter C. Brown teach you how to learn and study based on data about how your brain comprehends and retains information. The book\u2019s principles and prescriptions draw from a vast number of research studies. This book doesn\u2019t help you simply pass the midterm\u2014it teaches you how to absorb and master new information. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following Make it Stick<\/em> quotes highlight some of the key points. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Although people spend their entire lives learning, most of them are doing it wrong. Strategies like rereading and drilling a skill over and over to commit it to memory take a lot of time and ultimately don\u2019t work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Make It Stick<\/em> teaches you the strategies that help you achieve the two primary goals of learning: To understand <\/em>and remember <\/em>what you learn so you can use your knowledge in future situations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Below is a selection of Make It Stick<\/em> quotes by Peter C. Brown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPractice that\u2019s spaced out, interleaved with other learning, and varied produces better mastery, longer retention, and more versatility. But these benefits come at a price: 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\u2019t get the rapid improvements and affirmations<\/a> you\u2019re accustomed to seeing from massed practice.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Spaced practice<\/a> is a study technique<\/a> that involves multiple short study sessions spaced out over time. Spaced practice may feel less productive than cramming initially because you\u2019ve forgotten some of the material and it feels like you don\u2019t have a grasp of it\u2014<\/strong>but that extra effort is precisely what makes the method effective. There are two methods that improve comprehension and retention while organically spacing your practice:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interleaved practice<\/a>: <\/strong>mixing up your practice among multiple related topics or skills. Interleaved practice improves your comprehension and retention in two ways: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Switching among different topics naturally spaces out your practice in any one area.<\/li>
  2. Changing your focus among related topics helps you make connections among them, which deepens your understanding of each subject. <\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Varied practice: <\/strong>practicing a skill in different contexts, which strengthens your ability to apply that skill to a variety of situations. Varied practice strengthens your understanding of the underlying principles and makes you better at discerning among different contexts to determine the best way to approach a situation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Interleaved and varied practice strengthen your conceptual knowledge<\/a> of the underlying principles, as opposed to a simple surface-level understanding of facts and figures. The conceptual knowledge you gain through these methods improves your ability to discriminate, or determine what knowledge or which skill you need in various situations. This is a crucial aspect of using what you learn in real-life situations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cRetrieval practice\u2014recalling facts or concepts or events from memory\u2014is a more effective learning strategy<\/a> than review by rereading. Flashcards are a simple example. Retrieval strengthens the memory and interrupts forgetting. A single, simple quiz after reading a text or hearing a lecture produces better learning and remembering than rereading the text or reviewing lecture notes.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

    According to the authors, the most effective way to improve learning retention<\/a> is through retrieval practice<\/a>. Retrieval is any exercise that requires you to recall the information or skill you\u2019ve learned. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Think of learning like stringing beads for a necklace: Every new fact, concept, and skill is a bead, and your memory is the string. The beads will simply slide off the other end of the string if you don\u2019t tie a knot to keep them in place. Retrieval is the knot at the end of the string that prevents you from forgetting what you learn. When you repeatedly practice retrieval, you\u2019re double- and triple-knotting the string to make sure the beads don\u2019t slip off. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The better you remember something, the more reflexively you can recall that information when you need it, which is a key aspect of mastery. For example, a quarterback practices movements and scenarios until they become second nature\u2014because when it\u2019s game time, he won\u2019t have a spare second to stop and think about what he has to do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cRereading has three strikes against it. It is time-consuming. It doesn\u2019t result in durable memory. And it often involves a kind of unwitting self-deception, as growing familiarity with the text comes to feel like mastery of the content. The hours immersed in rereading can seem like due diligence, but the amount of study time is no measure of mastery.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

    Most people believe that rereading and massed practice (practicing one thing over and over in one sitting) are the most effective ways to learn and remember information. However, single-subject focus and endless repetition present three problems: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    1) They take a lot of time.<\/strong> The time you spend rereading would be better spent using other, more effective strategies, which we\u2019ll get into later. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    2) They don’t help you remember the information long term.<\/strong> You may remember the material long enough to pass a test the following day, but you\u2019ll forget most of it by the time the midterm rolls around. In fact, research proves that retention quickly fades with these methods. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    3) They fool you into thinking you\u2019ve mastered the material.<\/strong> Rereading in succession makes you more familiar with the specific text and its wording, which tricks you into thinking you\u2019ve mastered the concepts behind<\/em> the text. Mastery requires you to know the information, grasp the underlying ideas and concepts, and understand how to apply them to different situations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cThe stories we create to understand ourselves become the narratives of our lives, explaining the accidents and choices that have brought us where we are: what I’m good at, what I care about most, and where I’m headed.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

    Here, the authors discuss how narratives (both external and internal) influence the way we remember and interpret our experiences. This lends itself to memory distortions<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n