▮ 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.
▮ 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.
