Memory Is the Mother of All Wisdom
by Lisa HanselFebruary 18th, 2014
Aeschylus’s pearl, “Memory is the mother of all wisdom,” is the epigraph to a profoundly important new book: Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger, III, and Mark A. McDaniel.
It’s extremely rare to find a book that everyone should read, but Make It Stick deserves such praise. You could consider it a book of cognitive psychology or education policy—I think it might be the ultimate self-help guide.
Facts, skills, concepts, knowhow—Make It Stick will make you more efficient and effective in every aspect of learning. It’ll even boost your perseverance. And if you follow its advice, soon your critical thinking, problem solving, and creativity will improve, since these are knowledge-driven skills.
Throughout the book, stories—like a mid-flight engine failure—are used to explain well-established findings—like the necessity of practicing in realistic settings. From a struggling medical student, we learn that rereading and highlighting are not effective studying techniques, though they are often the only techniques students know. And from baseball players and math students, we learn the importance of “interleaved” practice—practicing with a mix of pitches or problems so that you not only have to hit the ball or solve the problem, you have to figure out what type of pitch or problem is coming at you.
Read further - click here. I am headed to Amazon to buy Make it Stick. Want to join me in a discussion after you read it???
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