Make It Stick
by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger, Mark A. McDaniel · first published 2014
83% recommend14% neutral3% critical
Why HN recommends it
Research-backed overview of how to learn effectively, covering retrieval practice, spaced repetition, self-testing, and why making learning harder helps. Suits lay readers, students, and teachers.
Common criticism: Some find it a slog that makes its point early and drags
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
To most of us, learning something "the hard way" implies wasted time and effort. Good teaching, we believe, should be creatively tailored to the different learning styles of students and should use strategies that make learning easier. Make It Stick turns fashionable ideas like these on their head. Drawing on recent discoveries in cognitive psychology and other disciplines, the authors offer concrete techniques for becoming more productive learners. Memory plays a central role in our ability to carry out complex cognitive tasks, such as applying knowledge to problems never before encountered a
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> Fancy apps are not needed Not sure if Anki counts as fancy, but it certainly is orders of magnitude more efficient than taking notes or active reading. See also: Make It Stick [1]. If you're trying to memorize content spaced repetition is unmatched. I've durably memorized entire 300-page programming design books (e.g. Effective Java) in under a month of 30 min/day reading+Anki…
on “How to Remember What You Read” ↗The book Make It Stick by Brown, Roediger and McDaniel is helpful. tl;dr of it is: - lots of low-stakes quizzing and practice - spaced repetition - reflect on what you've learned and what you could do better next time, and…
on “1,700 Free Online Courses from Top Universities” ↗…words. I realized I didn’t understand many of them, I just knew their translation. I didn’t really feel what they meant, and because of that, I couldn’t use them in my writing. I read the book called “make it stick” by Peter Brown to learn more about the science of learning since I didn’t want to spend countless hours reviewing words I would forget anyway. In the book, the author argues, quite convincingly, that…
on “Show HN: Tired of Anki? I built a modern app for learning words with examples” ↗I recently finished Make It Stick by Peter C Brown, who also says the learning styles myth is bogus. Highly recommended book that changed the way read (I take notes and put them on flashcards). The main point is that effortful retrieval…
on “Do Students Really Have Different Learning Styles?” ↗I would absolutely recommend the book that's mentioned at the end of the article: "Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning by Peter C. Brown et al." It's a great read for anybody who wants to continue learning new material. I'm one of the people who had very poor studying practices beforehand...
on “How to Learn Efficiently” ↗If somebody prefer a book instead, one of the recommended books for this course is book [1] Make it stick: The science of successful learning. The book is written by several cognitive scientist and it contains many useful tricks about learning. Here you can find a short summary containing main ideas of the…
on “Ask HN: How to learn new things better?” ↗My book recommendations in this regard: Make it stick Peak Both heavily cite research. I want to get to "a mind for numbers", but haven't actually read it yet. I've heard great things though.
on “Research-backed strategies for better learning” ↗Should you be interested in the science and research behind it, I warmly recommend reading the book "Make It Stick" where the concepts are discussed in length. [1] [1]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18770267-make-it-stick
on “The Feynman Technique: The Best Way to Learn Anything (2012)” ↗…The Talent Code - Daniel Coyle Peak - Anders Ericsson The Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy - William B. Irvine The Power of Habit - Charles Duhigg Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning - Peter C. Brown Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art - Stephen Nachmanovitch Sapiens - Yuval Noah Harari
on “Ask HN: Best books you read in the past decade?” ↗…by reading a cognitive science textbook and go from there. I have Cognition by Reisberg[0], it was well-written and well-structured. Alternatively, an entertaining and informative popular account is Make It Stick by Brown, Roediger and McDaniel[1]. I do agree that the research findings are greatly underapplied, though. [0] https://www.amazon.com/Cognition-Exploring-Science-Mind-Seve... [1] https://www.amazon.com/Make-Stick-Science-Successful-Learnin...
on “Lambda School’s Misleading Promises” ↗…long-term retrieval. (And your collection of practice exams make for a great way to cumulatively test that you're recalling everything you've learned.) This and many more tricks were learned by reading "Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning" -- https://www.amazon.com/Make-Stick-Science-Successful-Learnin...
on “Ask HN: How to take notes?” ↗…harder for them to use primary school students, hence far less research with young learners. Implementing these techniques in elementary schools is more challenging then many would guess. Two good books: "Make it Stick" Brown, Roediger, McDaniel; "Powerful Teaching" Agarwal & Bain. PM me if you'd like more info. The second book describes research with middle school students. Pooja Agarwal also hosts the informative…
on “Spaced repetition can allow for infinite recall” ↗…response to. Another excerpt from the book[4] has actionable advice that is quite good. [1] http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=%22deliberate+prac... [2] http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/books/make-it-stick-th... http://blog.coreknowledge.org/tag/henry-l-roediger/ http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/is-america/201404/test-p... [3] http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/26780.aspx [4] http://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2014/03/09/how-learn-bet...
on “The Myth of Massed Practice” ↗A more up-to-date and complete treatment of these exact topics can be found in the recently-published book, _Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning_ (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0674729013/). For those that have already immersed themselves in spaced repetition techniques via Anki, SuperMemo, Mnemosyne, etc., some…
on “Packing things in your brain in a way that keeps them from leaking out” ↗…while, the topic of this article started floating around the internet and last I heard, my friend had stopped using Lumosity. On a more cheery note, I am surprised to find no one mentioned the book "Make it stick" by Peter Brown et. al. which would probably be a hard pill to swallow for the Lumosity fans. Someone should find a way to "appify" the principles in the book. It would be one seriously boring app, but…
on “Brain training exercises might just make you better at brain training exercises” ↗