399. Make It Stick

▮ Learning How to Learn

For this post, I’d like to share my top messages from the book “Make it stick” by Peter C Brown. I read 46 books last year, and this book about learning how to learn is definitely one of my favorite books.

Here are my takeaways from this book. I hope some messages resonate with you as well.

By Peter C Brown

▮ Top Messages

  • Varied Practice: Like tossing your beanbags into baskets at mixed distances improves your ability to transfer learning from one situation and apply it successfully to another
  • Generation: Trying to solve a problem before being taught the solution leads to better learning, even when errors are made in the attempt
  • Elaboration is the process of giving new material meaning by expressing it in your own words and connecting it with what you already know

▮ Other Takeaways

The following are phrases from the book that didn’t make it to my top messages.

  • Periodic practice arrests forgetting, strengthens retrieval routes and is essential for hanging onto the knowledge you want to gain.
  • People who learn to extract the key ideas from new material and organize them into a mental model and connect that model to prior knowledge show an advantage in learning complex mastery
  • Effortful retrieval makes for stronger learning and retention
  • As the sports adage goes- “practice like you play and you will play as you practice”
  • People seldom receive negative feedback about their skills and abilities from others in everyday life, because people don’t like to deliver bad news.

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