Make It Stick

When I was an undergraduate, I prepared for exams by reviewing my notes and books. When I was a graduate student, I prepared for exams by thinking through possible questions and answering them in my head.

Which was the best strategy? Brown et al. make clear that self-testing is best.

Testing yourself involves active learning and effortful learning, which are far more likely to stick. The book draws on empirical research to help students (and adults) understand how best to learn.

Make It Stick was a revelation for me. Never before in one place had I encountered a suite of strategies for “stickier” memories. As a bonus, the book is deliberately organized to make the techniques it describes “sticky” in and of themselves. Learning, simply put, isn’t very useful if what we learn soon becomes inaccessible—and too often, school is set up in a way that makes such an outcome distressingly likely. Make It Stick arms learners with the means to fight back. Spaced retrieval, interleaving, metacognition, the testing effect, desirable difficulties—individual learners will find a host of powerful strategies inside. 

If you want a review of the most fundamental scientific discoveries on how people learn, this is a great place to start. It not only provides clear summaries of the science, but also provides a host of detailed real-world illustrations of how the science can be rooted in a wide-range of applications.