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Summary of the key concepts in the book:
Conventional Wisdom: Make learning easy
Best practice: Design learning with desirable difficulties
Discussion: “Learning is deeper and more durable when it is effortful.” “Difficulties that elicit more effort and that slow down learning… will more than compensate for their inconvenience by making the learning stronger, more precise, and more enduring. Short-term impediments that make for stronger learning have come to be called desirable difficulties.” “Don’t assume you are doing something wrong if the learning feels hard.” “Not all difficulties in learning are desirable ones. Anxiety while taking a test seems to represent an undesirable difficulty.” Slow down to find meaning. Always read prior to the lecture. “Training has to be engaging in order to hold employees’ attention.”
Conventional Wisdom: Concentrate on one topic at a time (aka. massed practice)
Best practice: Interleave different but related topics
Discussion: “Learning from interleaved practice feels slower than learning from massed practice.” While interleaving can impede performance during initial learning (tests taken immediately after exposure), interleaving has been show to boost “final test performance by a remarkable 215 percent.” In addition, “commonalities… learned through massed practice proved less useful than the differences … learned through interleaving.” “In interleaving, you don’t move from a complete practice set of one topic to go to another. You switch before each practice is complete… You need to shuffle your flashcards.”
Conventional Wisdom: Reread material multiple times and in close succession
Best practice: Space repetition
Discussion: “Repetition by itself does not lead to good long-term memory… It makes sense to reread a text once if there’s been a meaningful lapse [at least a day in between] since the first reading.” “The increased effort required to retrieve the learning after a little forgetting has the effect of retriggering consolidation, further strengthening memory.” “Design quizzing and exercises to reach back to concepts and learning covered earlier in the term, so that retrieval practices continues and the learning is cumulative.” Spiral upward at increasing levels of difficulty with each re-exposure.
Conventional Wisdom: Reread to lock-in knowledge
Best practice: Focus on effortful recall of facts or concepts or events from memory (aka. Retrieval practice)
Discussion: “Retrieving knowledge and skill from memory should become your primary study strategy in place of rereading.” There are many methods of retrieval practice. Elaboration, expressing new material in your own words and connecting it with what you already know to find new layers of meaning, for instance by writing daily summaries, is the most effective. Moreover, “cultivating the habit of reflecting on ones’ experiences, of making them into a story, strengthens learning.” Essays and short answer tests are the next most effective durable learning strategies because they involve “Generation… an attempt to answer a question… before being shown the answer”, followed by practice with flash cards, reflection, and, least effective though still useful, multiple choice or true/false questions. To foster this, convert main points into questions to answer during subsequent studying rather than (or in addition to) highlighting and underling,
Conventional Wisdom: Conduct pop-quizzes and high-stakes post-testing with a goal toward errorless results
Best practice: Conduct frequent, predictable, low-stakes testing (including pre-testing)
Discussion: “Trying to solve a problem before being taught the solution leads to better learning, even when errors are made in the attempt.” In fact, “making mistakes and correcting them builds the bridges to advanced learning.” In addition, frequent quizzing – especially when quizzes are announced in advance - actually reduces learner anxiety. With respect to anxiety, the peak-end rule applies; people judge experiences based on how they were at the peak and at the end. Appreciate that “errors are a natural part of learning.” “Make quizzing and practice exercises count toward the course grade, even if for very low stakes.” Set “clear learning objectives prior to each class.”
Conventional Wisdom: Match instructional style to each learner’s preference
Best practice: Match instructional style to the nature of the content
Discussion: While people do have preferred learning styles (ex: visual, auditory, kinesthetic, tactile), empirical research does not support the notion that learning in your preferred style leads to superior outcomes. “When instructional style matches the nature of the content, all learners learn better, regardless of their differing preferences for how the material is taught.”
Conventional Wisdom: Memorize
Best practice: Extract underlying principles (aka “rule learning” and “structure building”)
Discussion: “It is better to solve a problem than to memorize a solution.” “Mnemonic devise are sometimes discounted as tricks of memory, not tools that fundamentally add to learning, and in a sense this is correct. The value of mnemonics to raise intellectual abilities comes after mastery of new material.”
Conventional Wisdom: Learn abstract concepts
Best practice: Learn using methods and examples that are concrete and personal
Discussion: “The kind of retrieval practice that proves most effective is one that reflects what you’ll be doing with the knowledge later. It’s not just what you know, but how you practice what you know that determines how well the learning serves you later.” Simulations and role-playing are excellent techniques. “Difficulties that don’t strengthen the skills you will need, or the kinds of challenges you are likely to encounter in the real-world application of your learning, are not desirable.” “Practice like you play, because you will play like you practice.” “Sustained deliberate practice… [is] goal-directed, often solitary, and consists of repeated striving to reach beyond your current level of performance.”
Conventional Wisdom: Read without pausing
Best practice: Spend 40% of time reading and 60% of time “looking up from the material and silently reciting” what it contains.
Conventional Wisdom: Provide immediate feedback
Best practice: Delay feedback
Discussion: “Delaying the feedback briefly produces better long-term learning than immediate feedback.” That said, receiving immediate corrective feedback is better than receiving no feedback at all.
Conventional Wisdom: Review all concepts equally
Best practice: Disproportionately focus on the least familiar material (aka dynamic testing)
Discussion: To increase frequency of practice on less familiar material without completely ignoring the most familiar material, use the Leitner box method. “Think of it as a series of four file-card boxes. In the first are the study materials… that must be practices frequently because you often make mistakes in them. In the second box are the cards you’re pretty good at, and that box gets practiced less often than the first, perhaps by half. The cards in the third box are practiced less often than those in the second box, and so on.”
Conventional Wisdom: Accept that IQ is fixed
Best practice: Focus on mindset
Discussion: “Average IQs have risen over the past century with changes in living conditions... IQ is a product of genes and environment” including increased stimulation, nurturing, nutrition “One difference that matters a lot is how you see yourself and your abilities. As the maxim goes, ‘Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.’” Adopt a growth mindset rather than a fixed mindset; “consider your expertise to be in a continuing state of development.” “Success is less dependent on IQ than on grit, curiosity, and persistence.” Knowledge is a foundational element of creativity, critical thinking, and application. “The upper limits of your performance on any cognitive or manual skill may be set by factors beyond your control, such as you intelligence and the natural limits of your ability, but most of us can learn to perform nearer to our full potential in most areas by discovering our weaknesses and working to bring them up.” “Achieving expertise in any field if particular to that field… The central idea here is that expert performance is a product of the quantity of and the quality of practice, not of genetic predisposition, and that becoming expert is not beyond the reach of normally gifted people who have the motivation, time, and discipline to pursue it.”
Conventional Wisdom: Trust your own sense of mastery
Best practice: Calibrate your judgment
Discussion: “Calibration is the act of aligning your judgments of what you know and don’t know with objective feedback so as to avoid being carried off by the illusions of mastery that catch many learning by surprise at test time.”
Note: This book practices what it preaches with lots and lots of repetition. The authors are up-front about that but it does get well... repetitive.
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Customers say
Customers find this book excellent for learning research, with clear scientific data on how learning occurs and practical advice for educators and students. The book is easy to read and understand, with well-written content that includes stories to illustrate main points, though opinions about the narrative are mixed. Customers appreciate its thought-provoking content, with one review noting how it summarizes decades of research.
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289 customers mention content, 274 positive, 15 negative
Great book. Supported by scientific studies. But... It's a lot of bla, bla, bla before getting into the How To Do It....Read more
...This is such an excellent book! I have already recommended it to dozens of colleagues, students and parents.Read more
Good book, easy read. I had read the on-line article referenced in some of the other books first, but I think I got more out of reading the book....Read more
Amazing book. Well read and great examples. I recommend it to my students!Read more
173 customers mention informative, 168 positive, 5 negative
...I found it to be sensible, scientific, and insightful. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in what is being learned about how we learn.Read more
...to the audio version of this book and found it had so much great information, insights and ideas that I decded to purchase a hard copy that I could...Read more
...I found this book to be very engaging and very informative as there are lots of concrete examples and tools for students and teachers....Read more
...It would be helpful and informative to anyone who is a student or considers themselves a lifelong learner.Read more
165 customers mention readability, 156 positive, 9 negative
74 customers mention practical, 73 positive, 1 negative
Research-based, practical and illustrated with useful examples. I would strongly recommend it to other graduate (and undergraduate) students....Read more
This is a great book and has very practical advice. It definitely changed how I was preparing for exams.Read more
Very useful book. Bit redundant but I suppose it provides plenty of examples and different methods. I would recommend it for teachers and students.Read more
Very helpful book. In an age of information overload, it is very important to be an effective learner....Read more
45 customers mention writing quality, 40 positive, 5 negative
Simple, well written and teaches important lessons. The fact that a novel writer is co-author probably explains why it is so pleasant to readRead more
Very well written with lots of stories that bring the material to life. If I have any complaint it’s that there is no age differenceRead more
Well-written, useful information.Read more
The book is well written and presents some good ideas.Read more
32 customers mention thought-provoking, 31 positive, 1 negative
This book has made me change my practice ... actually it was an eye opener. Loaded with good ideas and examples....Read more
...As I say, it’s been eye-opening, but surprisingly applicable to my interests in project management and peer review....Read more
Thought-provoking, practical advice with voluminous examples & illustrations that illuminate the concepts....Read more
...is to know about teaching and learning... however, this book really opened my eyes....Read more
25 customers mention clarity, 23 positive, 2 negative
This book presents solid evidence demonstrating and explaining how to better understand and retain information....Read more
...However, still read the book. It gives more details, reasons, and explainations.Read more
This was a fantastic read! Straightforward, easy to understand explanations of what makes learning effective and why....Read more
...book and its detail on how each area tackled in this book is explained clearly that can even be easily applied to whatever it is I'm learning, bit...Read more
29 customers mention narrative, 19 positive, 10 negative
Great narrative, helpful ideas.Read more
...hoping to find more meat in the middle chapters, but they are filled with stories and do not add to my understanding of the concepts ....Read more
Very well written with lots of stories that bring the material to life. If I have any complaint it’s that there is no age differenceRead more
...It then provides studies and narrative stories to illustrate those, but that's the core message of the book....Read more
Eye Opening
I loved this book and cannot stop recommending it to people. I recently found myself ordering books in quick succession and wondered how to work my way through them with optimal retention. Long story short, I heard about “interleaving” and found Make It Stick. As I say, it’s been eye-opening, but surprisingly applicable to my interests in project management and peer review. I understand if people find the writing a bit repetitive, but it being a lesson (of sorts), I believe it mirrors what the authors preach with interleaving topics, cyclical reorientation and summation. That said, the text is fewer than 300 pages - it’s not long. If it’s any consolation, the longer you find it (and keep at it), the more likely you are to retain it. I’m personally looking forward to rereading in a couple years.
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- Wesley Ludick-WilliamsReviewed in Japan on July 11, 2022
Insightful and Worth Reading
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Cliente de KindleReviewed in Mexico on July 26, 2018
Un libro de cabecera.
Format: eTextbookVerified Purchase - Mahesa BungalanReviewed in Saudi Arabia on August 23, 2025
Recommended book for a quick learner
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OscarReviewed in Spain on January 27, 2016
Un libro muy interesante sobre las formas de aprender, manteniendo lo aprendido a largo plazo
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