To stir a crowd is to get them excited about something and to stir a drink, such as the perfect glass of chocolate milk, is to blend seamlessly (where there is no chocolate at the bottom of the glass but the taste of chocolate in every sip). Two recent books on learning stir in both ways; they get the reader excited about learning and they clearly show that the basis of learning is blending knowledge with understanding. While one book is more scientifically centered (Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning) and the other is more story-based (How We Learn: The Surprising Truth about When, Where, and Why it Happens), they reinforce each other’s messages in complementary styles. The trouble with both books is that while their ideas are scientifically sound, clearly explained and need to be implemented in schoolrooms as well as boardrooms, the books are not assigned reading for policymakers, teachers and leaders: anyone who cares about and/or whose job is centered around learning needs to read these books. Each book STIRS the reader to actions that are sometimes counterintuitive but always effective for successful learning. (STIRS is an acronym I created to highlight the important factors that both books focus on for building an education that generates successful learning: Spaced, Transfer, Interleaving, Recitation & Sleep.)
Spaced—Spaced learning or the “Forget to Learn Theory” is one of the most effective ways to educate. It is based on the counterintuitive idea that if you want to know something so well that you can easily retrieve the knowledge whenever you want (i.e., your brain as Google), you should separate the learning of that knowledge by gaps of time where you begin to forget the knowledge. This spaced practice of building knowledge embeds learning in long-term memory because when you try to remember something you think you forgot, you activate complex networks in the brain that makes learning more robust and durable. “Forgetting enables and deepens learning,” according to Benedict Carey in How We Learn, “by filtering out distracting information and by allowing some breakdown that, after reuse, drives retrieval and storage strength higher than they were originally. Those are the basic principles that emerge from brain biology and cognitive science (p. 41).” A method to avoid any robust learning is to do what too many traditional teachers recommend (and what Rudy Giuliani famously called for in the 2012 presidential election): “drill baby drill” or what is known in the science of learning lingo as massed practice. Constant drilling and cramming may work for short-term memory goals but it simply does not work for embedding knowledge in long-term memory or, in other words, for any durable learning purpose.
Transfer—The more difficult and effortful we find learning something, the more durable and transferable the learning is to different settings. Both books use Robert and Elizabeth Bjork’s research on “desirable difficulties” as a foundational concept for outlining how learning can be robust and applicable in other contexts. In the words of Brown, Roediger and McDaniel, “the more effort required to retrieve (or, in effect, relearn) something, the better you learn it…The retrieval difficulties posed by spacing [and other practices] are overcome by invoking the same mental processes that will be needed later in applying the learning in everyday settings” (p. 82 & 85). We learn deeper and with wider applicability when learning is effortful.
Interleaving—An effortful and desirably difficult method for learning is interleaving (spacing is another kind of desirable difficulty). Interleaving is the practice of mixing two or more subjects or skills in one learning session. It usually involves weaving new ideas with older material. Make it Stick points-out that “learning from interleaved practice feels slower than learning from massed practice. Teachers and students sense the difference…As a result, interleaving is unpopular and seldom used. Teachers dislike it because it feels sluggish. Students find it confusing…But the research shows unequivocally that mastery and long-term retention are much better if you interleave practice than if you mass it” (p. 50). The mixed practice of interleaving, in short, makes the brain work harder, which makes learning stronger.
Recitation—If you want to remember a written passage or anything else you should spend more time rehearsing or restating it rather than studying or memorizing it. Amazingly, reciting a passage increases your memorization of it better than memorizing it by itself. As Carey writes in How We Learn, you should “spend the first third of your time memorizing it, and the remaining two thirds reciting from memory” (p. 85). In another section of the book, Carey explains how the best way to learn something is to teach it and he calls that “the high-octane kind” of studying (p. 102-103); a recitation with an exclamation.
Sleep—While How We Learn devotes an entire chapter to the importance of sleep to learning (chapter ten), Make it Stick weaves sleep into sections of the book highlighting its importance for consolidating learning. The books, for me, reinforced the ideas and arguments made in the American Academy of Pediatrics policy statement this past August for delaying the time schools start each day all for the purpose of improving health and academic success. Another study on delaying school start times by the University of Minnesota in St. Paul (February 2014) “found improved grades and standardized test scores, and a 65 to 70 percent reduction in teen car accidents.” Scores up and accidents down sounds like a type of balanced learning that is good for the students and their communities.
“How we learn” is really about “making it stick” in our brain and the combination of the two books provides scientific and pedagogical clarity for how robust and durable learning can and should occur. Reading the books together was like stirring the perfect glass of chocolate milk made to toast learning. I enjoyed every sip … I learned from every chapter.
American Academy of Pediatrics, “School Start Times for Adolescents: Policy Statement” (Pediatrics: August 25, 2014)
Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III and Mark A. McDaniel, Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning (Harvard University Press/Belknap Press: April, 2014)
Benedict Carey, How We Learn: The Surprising Truth about When, Where, and Why it Happens (Random House: September, 2014).
Andy Coghlan, “Open Schools Later so Teens can Lie In, Say US Doctors” (New Scientist: August 25, 2014)
Chris is Professor of Political Science at Western Connecticut State University, a Fulbright Scholar, Director of the Kathwari Honors Program, and founding Director of the Center for Compassion, Creativity & Innovation. He is also the author of "The Compassionate Achiever: How Helping Others Fuels Success" (HarperOne, 2017).
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