You’ve been learning all wrong!
Think back to your school days. What did you do when it was time to study for a big test? If you’re like most people, you probably re-read your notes and textbook until the words swam before your eyes. You reviewed the material over and over, hoping to burn it into your brain. The more times you read through it, the more familiar it felt, giving you the sense you’d mastered it cold.
There’s just one problem. Study methods like this don’t work. The truth is that much of what we believe about learning is dead wrong.
This surprising fact lies at the heart of the book Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning. Drawing on decades of research, the authors explain how our instincts about learning often lead us astray and reveal the counterintuitive techniques that cement knowledge in our brains. When you finish reading, you’ll never study the same way again.
To learn, retrieve.
About the book
In this engaging and informative book, Peter C. Brown and his co-authors Henry L. Roediger III and Mark A. McDaniel draw on decades of cognitive science research to reveal the counterintuitive approaches that lead to deep, durable learning. Through entertaining stories and examples, the authors show how techniques like self-testing, spacing out practice, interleaving different topics and problems, and learning through difficulty help learners of all ages more effectively encode knowledge and skills in long-term memory.
The authors dispel common myths about learning, such as the belief that re-reading and massed practice are effective study methods. Instead, research shows that more challenging strategies – which may feel less productive in the moment – are the ones that generate long-lasting retention and understanding. By explaining the science behind how learning happens in the brain, the authors equip readers to become more adept, self-reliant learners in any field.
About the authors
Peter C. Brown is an author and storyteller who has collaborated with cognitive scientists Henry L. Roediger III and Mark A. McDaniel to make their research accessible to general readers.
Henry L. Roediger III is a cognitive psychologist and memory expert at Washington University in St. Louis. His research explores how the mind encodes, stores, and retrieves memories.
Mark A. McDaniel, also a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, is a cognitive psychologist who studies prospective memory, encoding effects on learning and memory, and applying cognitive psychology to education.
Book reviews
Reviewers praise “Make it Stick” for translating rigorous scientific research into actionable strategies that learners, teachers, and trainers can readily implement. The book’s compelling stories bring the principles to life. However, some reviewers felt the key ideas could have been presented more succinctly without so many anecdotes.
Pros
Cons:
1. Learning Is Misunderstood
Many common beliefs about learning are misguided – rereading, highlighting and cramming are less effective than more challenging techniques. What feels productive often is not.
Direct quote
Learning is deeper and more durable when it’s effortful. Learning that’s easy is like writing in sand, here today and gone tomorrow.
The doer alone learneth.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Takeaways
Definitions
Rereading means reading the same text many times to learn it, but research shows this does nothing to help you learn. Highlighting lets you mark key parts of your notes or books with colored pens, yet studies prove this method works no better than not marking anything at all. Students who cram try to learn everything right before a test by studying intensely in one session, but the brain processes information best through repeated short study periods over time – crammed information vanishes from memory within days.
Students who use retrieval practice test themselves on what they learned by writing down everything they remember or explaining concepts to others, strengthening memory much better than just reading notes again. Elaboration (explaining stuff in your own words and world) builds deep understanding by connecting new information to what you already know – like relating cell membranes to house walls or linking historical events to modern situations. Spacing spreads out study sessions over days or weeks instead of studying everything at once, which gives your brain time to nearly forget, re-process and store information in long-term memory, making it stick around for months or years instead of just a few days.
To cement learning, students should put new knowledge into their own words, connect it to what they already know, and practice retrieving it. Recalling information is what cements it in long-term memory.
Question
Strategies that make learning seem fluent and easy, like rereading or listening to a lecture, give a false sense of mastery. Without actively engaging with the material through retrieval, elaboration, and spacing, those superficial memories quickly fade.
Exercise
After reading a text, put it aside and write down the key ideas from memory. Compare what you recalled to the original to see what you missed. Focus your studying on the gaps.
2. To Learn, Retrieve
Retrieving knowledge from memory is a highly potent learning event. Testing is not just for assessment but is a powerful learning tool itself.
Direct quote
Practicing retrieval makes learning stick far better than reexposure to the original material does.
The act of retrieving learning from memory has two profound benefits. One, it tells you what you know and don’t know, and therefore where to focus further study to improve the areas where you’re weak. Two, recalling what you have learned causes your brain to reconsolidate the memory, which strengthens its connections to what you already know and makes it easier for you to recall in the future.
Peter C. Brown
Takeaways
Research shows that struggling to retrieve information is much more effective for cementing it in memory than rereading. Even a single test can produce substantial learning and remembering. Repeated testing (spaced repetition) works even better.
Question
Having to generate an answer to a question, as opposed to simply rereading, forces you to pull information out of your own memory. This effortful act of reconstructing knowledge strengthens the connections in your mind and makes the learning more durable.
Exercise
When studying from a text, pause periodically and ask yourself questions the author might ask if testing you. What are the key ideas? What terms or ideas are new to you? See if you can explain them in your own words.
3. Mix Up Your Practice
Although it may feel more arduous and less productive, interleaving different topics or types of problems during practice strengthens learning and retention compared to focusing narrowly on one skill at a time.
Direct quote
When practice conditions are varied or retrieval is interleaved with the practice of other material, we increase our abilities of discrimination and induction and the versatility with which we can apply the learning in new settings at a later date.
The paradox is that those students who used the least effective study strategies overestimate their learning the most and, as a consequence of their misplaced confidence, they are not inclined to change their habits.
Peter C. Brown
Key Takeaways
Definitions
Interleaving means mixing up different but related topics when you study or practice skills, rather than working on one thing at a time. For example, instead of solving 20 algebra problems and then 20 geometry problems, you’d mix them together – doing algebra, then geometry, then back to algebra. This method forces your brain to work harder to switch between topics, which builds stronger learning connections, even though it feels harder while you’re doing it.
In a key study, researchers split participants into two groups. One group practised throwing bean bags at targets all from the same distance – like throwing 50 times from 3 feet away. The other group mixed up their throws between three different distances during practice. During practice, the same-distance group seemed to do better. But when tested later from a new distance they’d never tried before, the mixed-distance group scored way higher. This shows how interleaving (mixing up practice) helps people learn skills they can use in new situations, while blocked practice (doing the same thing over and over) only helps with that exact task.
Compared to massed practice, spacing and interleaving feel less effective in the moment but produce lasting benefits. Teachers and learners tend to prefer massed practice because it quickly produces a sense of mastery, even though the learning is short-lived.
Question
Interleaving is optimal for complex learning that requires discriminating between related concepts or strategies, like deciding which mathematical approach to use for a given problem or categorizing examples. By mixing up practice, learners abstract the underlying rules and learn when to apply what strategy.
Exercise
When studying related text chapters, do practice problems covering a mix of the different topics rather than concentrating all your practice on one topic at a time before moving on. Make flashcards for vocabulary terms from several related chapters and shuffle them together rather than always quizzing on one chapter at a time.
4. Embrace Difficulties
Obstacles and errors during learning can feel counterproductive in the moment. However, wrestling with challenges that require more effort encodes learning more deeply for better retrieval later. Making mistakes is actually a powerful learning event.
Direct quote
The more effort required to retrieve (or, in effect, relearn) something, the better you learn it.
Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes.
John Dewey
Takeaways
People who view tests as learning opportunities and mistakes as essential for improvement learn more than those who see tests as judgments of competence and mistakes as indicators of low ability. Cultivating a “growth mindset,” as described by Carol Dweck, primes people to embrace new challenges rather than fear them.
Question
Working through confusion to find an answer or correct an error takes more mental effort than simply reading or hearing the answer. That productive struggle encodes the learning more deeply and strengthens retrieval paths. We learn more from the experience of overcoming a challenge than from breezing through with ease.
Exercise
When stuck on a tough problem, don’t look at the answer key right away. Keep wrestling with possible solutions, then check the key and adjust your thinking. Reflect on what made the problem challenging and how you will handle similar difficulties in the future.
5. Avoid Illusions of Knowing
Our judgments of what we know and don’t know are often inaccurate. Numerous cognitive biases and illusions lead us to overestimate our mastery. Testing ourselves helps counter these distortions.
Direct quote
When you’re adept at extracting the underlying principles or ‘rules’ that differentiate types of problems, you’re more successful at picking the right solutions in unfamiliar situations.
The illusion of knowing is a mirage that can deceive us into thinking we’re ready when we’re not.
Peter C. Brown
Takeaways
Definitions
Metacognition is thinking about your own thinking and learning – like being the director of your brain. A student with strong metacognition knows when they’ve mastered something versus when they’re still confused. For example, after reading a textbook chapter, instead of thinking “I read it so I know it,” they ask themselves questions like “Could I teach this to someone?” or “What parts am I still unsure about?” This self-check helps them spot gaps in their understanding and change their study methods when needed, rather than being surprised by what they don’t know during a test.
Students and teachers tend to put stock in how “natural” some skill or knowledge seems during learning. If reading a text feels fluid and easy, they assume the material is well-learned. However, research shows that fluency is an unreliable indicator compared to more effortful retrieval practice.
Question
Build frequent low-stakes quizzing into your study routine. Try to answer questions about the material before checking your notes or the text where you struggle to generate answers, and zero in on those areas in further study. Reflect on where your understanding is still shaky.
Exercise
A week or two after studying something, write down everything you can recall about the topic from memory. Then, go back and check what you got right, wrong, or left out compared to the source material. This recitation exercise quickly highlights what you retained versus what faded.
6. Get Beyond Learning Styles
Research does not support the popular notion that each person has a particular learning style and learns best when instruction fits it. Teaching to a student’s style preference does not improve outcomes.
Direct quote
People do have multiple forms of intelligence to bring to bear on learning, and you learn better when you ‘go wide,’ drawing on all of your aptitudes and resourcefulness, than when you limit instruction or experience to the style you find most amenable.
Humans are motivated to learn, and that motivation is a far more important determinant of learning than fixed notions of ability.
Peter C. Brown
Takeaways
Definitions
The learning styles hypothesis claims that people learn best when taught in their preferred way – like visual learners needing pictures, auditory learners needing spoken explanations, and kinesthetic learners needing hands-on practice. However, research shows no proof that matching teaching to preferred styles helps learning – students learn equally well regardless of whether the teaching matches their preferred style. What matters most is picking the best teaching method for the specific content, like using diagrams to teach spatial concepts or using words to teach abstract ideas, rather than trying to match individual learning preferences.
Fluid intelligence involves solving new problems without relying on past knowledge – it’s your raw mental horsepower for figuring things out. Picture trying to spot the pattern in a sequence of shapes you’ve never seen before, or solving a puzzle game for the first time. Crystallized intelligence draws on skills and facts you’ve learned through experience and education. When you name world capitals or explain historical events, you use crystallized intelligence. Both types work together – like when you read a new book, fluid intelligence helps you understand the plot twists, while crystallized intelligence lets you understand the words and connect themes to other ideas or books you’ve read.
The learning styles theory rests on a valid observation: people prefer visual, auditory, or kinesthetic experiences. However, experiments find no benefit from matching instruction to those inclinations. Learning depends far more on the student’s relevant background knowledge, the complexity of the material, and the methods used to process it.
Question
Fluid intelligence, a malleable trait reflecting reasoning and problem-solving skills, correlates better with learning than crystallized intelligence or accumulated knowledge. Non-cognitive traits such as curiosity, perseverance, and self-control frequently outweigh IQ as predictors of long-term learning outcomes.
Exercise
Instead of studying in just one mode that feels comfortable, mix it up. Attack the material from multiple angles. Read about it, listen to a podcast or lecture, watch a video, describe it out loud, or sketch it visually. Using varied approaches deepens your grasp and strengthens multiple retrieval pathways.
7. Increase Your Abilities
The premise that intellectual abilities are largely fixed from birth is false. With sustained practice, almost everyone can make large strides in skills like reasoning and problem-solving.
Direct quote
Effortful learning changes the brain, building new connections and capability. The stronger one’s knowledge about the subject at hand, the more nuanced one’s creativity can be in addressing a new problem.
Just as knowledge amounts to little without the exercise of ingenuity and imagination, creativity absent a sturdy foundation of knowledge builds a shaky house.
Peter C. Brown
Takeaways
Definitions
Deliberate practice is focused, intense practice that pushes you just beyond your current skill level while getting immediate feedback to fix mistakes. Instead of mindlessly repeating something you already know, you target specific weaknesses and constantly challenge yourself. A violin student doing deliberate practice would break down a hard piece into small sections, practice the toughest parts slowly with a metronome, record themselves to catch mistakes and work with their teacher to perfect their technique – rather than just playing through pieces they already know well. This type of practice feels hard and sometimes frustrating because you’re always working at the edge of your abilities, but it leads to much faster improvement than casual practice.
Researchers such as Anders Ericsson find that peak performance in fields from music to mathematics stems largely from thousands of hours of deliberate practice over years, not innate gifts. “Deliberate practice” means constantly pushing into unfamiliar territory and struggling to get better, not cruising on autopilot.
Question
Effective strategies include quizzing yourself and trying to recall information from memory, spacing out practice, interleaving different but related topics and skills, tackling problems before being taught the solution, distilling underlying principles from varied examples, and reflecting on your learning process.
Exercise
Choose something you want to get better at, whether playing guitar or speaking Spanish. Establish a regular practice schedule and stick to it, even if progress sometimes feels slow. Seek critical feedback on where you need to improve, and focus your efforts on those areas. Find role models who exemplify the abilities you aspire to, and study their path to mastery.
8. Make It Stick
To cement learning, shift your focus from what’s easy and routine toward what’s effortful and uncomfortable. Mastering complex knowledge means working to uncover and correct your weaknesses, not cruising through the parts you pick up quickly.
Direct quote
Pitting the learning of basic knowledge against the development of creative thinking is a false choice. Both need to be cultivated. The stronger one’s knowledge about the subject at hand, the more nuanced one’s creativity can be in addressing a new problem.
Some difficulties that require more cognitive effort and slow down apparent gains—like spacing, interleaving, and mixing up practice—will feel less productive at the time but will more than compensate for that by making the learning stronger, precise, and enduring.
Peter C. Brown
Takeaways
Great teachers attend to what students misunderstand as much as what they grasp readily. They use frequent low-stakes quizzing to assess performance, strengthen retention and inform their instruction. Requiring students to wrestle with questions or attempt solutions before being taught sharpens their engagement.
Question
Replace rereading and review with self-quizzing, either by using flashcards, by trying to write out everything you can recall about a topic from memory before checking the source material, or by making yourself answer questions about the key ideas without looking them up. Repeated retrieval practice over time is a potent memory aid.
Exercise
Think of a skill or subject you want to sharpen or relearn. Establish a schedule to test yourself on it periodically, starting with shorter intervals between sessions and then spacing them out over time. Stick with this retrieval practice even if you don’t feel you’re improving quickly – that uncomfortable challenge is what makes the learning stick.
Practical tips
Here are some practical tips and recommendations for learners, teachers, and trainers looking to apply the principles from the book.
For students
For teachers
For trainers
Bottom line
You can drastically improve your ability to learn and remember information. The key is to work with your brain, not against it. Give yourself frequent practice opportunities spaced out over time. Switch between different topics and types of problems to build robust understanding. Embrace the challenging but fruitful work of digging knowledge out of your mind through self-quizzing and skill practice. Start integrating these practical learning techniques into your routine. You’ll be amazed how much more you retain and how much farther your efforts take you.
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