Make It Stick

By: Maddie Brosky

After reading this book in one of my education classes I decided to write a blog post explaining how this book changed my whole idea on the type of teacher I want to become. There are a few ideas that I connected with as I read. This book challenges the ideas of how teachers in today's society believe their teaching strategies work for every student, but in reality, each and every person best learns in different ways. The whole idea of learning comes from different theories, each presented throughout the book like The Memory Theory, Feedback Theory, and lastly the Cooperative Learning Theory.

In Make It Stick the authors talk about the idea that learning is deeper and more durable when it requires effort. This idea is explained in chapter four, which talks about where learning is desirable due to the idea that the brain encodes and consolidates learning when learning it’s ‘effortful’; is strengthened through mental representations associated with retrieval and making connections (pg. 73). Also, the idea that learners are susceptible to the ‘illusion of knowing’. It’s not uncommon for learners to ‘not know what they don’t know'. Being aware of what one still needs to learn, or what skill needs developing is known as metacognition, and it’s part of overcoming the illusion of knowing. Teachers play an important role in helping students overcome the illusion of knowing by providing constructive feedback (pg. 126). And finally, that learning requires a strong foundation of knowledge, which supports the idea that we do need to learn foundational concepts even in a world where we can “Google it’. It seems that when knowledge is deeply entrenched in long-term memory it supports the learner’s ability to make connections with other knowledge held in one’s memory (pg. 76). ‘Googling’ a fact or a concept will likely be stored in the learner’s short-term memory, and while useful in certain contexts, it does not replace a learner having a knowledge base to call upon when working on complex projects or initiatives.

This book takes the teaching skills that are taught each and every day and puts a twist on them. This twist allows us as learners and those as teachers to work less but makes it mean more. I know when I become a teacher I will use the skills like teaching long-term memory instead of short-term, cooperative learning in a group environment and use feedback as a main source of encouragement to my students. 

References

Morrison, ~. Debbie. "Make Teaching ‘Stick’ with Ideas from “Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning”." Online Learning Insights. N.p., 22 July 2015. Web. 26 Mar. 2017.