Make It Stick (1-4)

1. Learning is Misunderstood
      * learning: acquiring knowledge / skills and having them readily available
        * requires memory
        * need to keep learning and remembering all our lives
        * learning is an acquired skill
      * claims
        * effortful learning sticks
        * we are poor judges of when we’re learning well or not 
        * the most preferred study strategies are the least productive (rereading text, etc)
        * retrieval practice is an effective learning strategy
        * spacing out practice results in longer lasting learning
        * trying to solve something before being taught the solution leads to better learning
      * all new learning requires a foundation of prior knowledge
      * elaboration: giving new material meaning by connecting it with what you already know
      * mental model: mental representation of some external reality
        * people who learn to extract key idea from new material and organize them into mental model have an advantage in learning complex mastery
      * cognitive psychology: basic science of understanding how the mind works
        * conducts empirical research into how people perceive, remember, and think
2. To Learn, Retrieve
      * reflection: retrieving knowledge and connecting to new experiences and visualizing / mentally rehearsing
      * retrieving knowledge from memory has the effect of making that knowledge easier to remember in the future
      * massed studying (cramming) leads to higher scores on immediate tests but results in easier forgetting than retrieval
      * when retrieval practice is spaced, it leads to stronger long-term retention
      * corrective feedback is useful for students
        * produces better learning of the correct answers
3. Mix Up Your Practice
      * practice is more effective when broken up into periods of time and spaced out
        * better mastery, longer retention, more versatility
        * requires more effort
        * allows for consolidation of knowledge
      * interleaved practice - mixing of problem types
      * varied practice - improves ability to transfer learning from one situation to different applications
        * also beneficial for motor learning
      * these skills help develop discrimination skills
        * “What type of problem is this?”
      * these principles are broadly applicable
4. Embrace Difficulties
      * desirable difficulties: short-term impediments that make for stronger learning
      * how learning works:
      * encoding: converting sensory perceptions into meaningful representations in the brain
      * consolidation: strengthening mental representations for long-term memory
        * helps organize and solidify learning
      * retrieval: being able to retrieve information when needed 
        * capacity is limited
        * we reassign cues to memories all the time
          * sometimes forgetting is essential to learning 
      * effort helps:
        * reconsolidating memory
        * creating mental models
        * broadening mastery
        * fostering conceptual learning
        * improving versatility
      * generative learning: the process of trying to solve a problem without being taught how
      * impediments you can’t overcome become undesirable difficulties

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