# Make It Stick — Chapter-by-Chapter Notes (Expanded)

Purpose: Slightly longer, still skimmable chapter notes capturing key mechanisms, claims, and emblematic examples so you can apply them quickly.

## 1) Learning Is Misunderstood
- What counts as learning: Knowledge/skills stored so they’re available from memory to interpret and solve new problems (e.g., pilot Matt Brown deciding to shut down an engine and land using left-hand turns to preserve lift).
- Central claims the book defends:
- Effortful learning is deeper/more durable than easy learning.
- We misjudge learning; fluency and familiarity feel like mastery but aren’t.
- Rereading and massed practice are popular but weak for long-term retention.
- Retrieval practice, spacing, interleaving, and “attempt before instruction” are strong.
- Illusions and exposure: Seeing pennies or nearby fire extinguishers repeatedly does not create reliable memory; exposure without retrieval doesn’t stick.
- Knowledge fuels creativity: Facts and conceptual understanding are prerequisites for high-level skills (analysis, synthesis, creative problem solving). It’s a false choice to pit knowledge against creativity.
- Testing reframed: Not just a dipstick; quizzing is a learning tool to calibrate what you know and strengthen memory.
- Prior knowledge and elaboration: New material sticks by attaching to what you already know and by making meaning in your own words and examples.

## 2) To Learn, Retrieve
- Retrieval beats restudy: Actively recalling from memory produces larger, longer-lasting gains than rereading, especially when repeated over time.
- Spacing retrieval: Multiple spaced quizzes “immunize” against forgetting better than one immediate test.
- Generation effect: Producing an answer (even from a strong cue) improves later recall; delaying practice between attempts increases effort and strengthens memory.
- Feedback: Corrective feedback enhances learning; short delays can improve long-term retention by making the retrieval more effortful before correction.
- Lab evidence snapshots:
- Immediate test vs restudy: Two days later and a week later, initially tested groups retained more than restudy groups.
- Repeated testing vs once: More tests (spaced) reduced forgetting dramatically compared to a single test.
- Classroom evidence snapshots:
- Columbia (IL) Middle School, Patrice Bain/Pooja Agarwal: Students quizzed three times (with feedback); quizzed material outperformed non-quizzed review material on later exams (students averaged around A– on quizzed vs C+ on reviewed-only). Students reported lower anxiety and liked the activity.
- Washington University (Andrew Sobel): Transition from few high-stakes exams to a set of scheduled, cumulative quizzes improved attendance, discussions, and the quality of written answers; students accepted scheduled quizzes more than surprise pop quizzes.
- Takeaway: Build frequent, low-stakes, cumulative retrieval with feedback; use results to target weak areas and to calibrate your self-judgments.

## 3) Mix Up Your Practice
- Spacing over massing:
- Why: Consolidation of memory (stabilizing, giving meaning, linking to prior knowledge) takes time; spacing forces effortful retrieval that reconsolidates learning.
- Example: Surgical residents learning microsutures performed better a month later when four lessons were spaced weekly vs all in one day; the massed group had more errors and some failed repairs.
- Interleaving problem types:
- Why: Forces discrimination—identifying which kind of problem it is and selecting the right method—boosting later performance and transfer.
- Example: Students practicing volumes of four geometric solids—blocked practice felt better during practice (higher immediate accuracy) but interleaving led to much higher scores a week later (blocked ~20% vs interleaved ~63%).
- Varied practice:
- Why: Builds flexible schemas and a richer “movement/solution vocabulary,” improving transfer to new contexts.
- Motor example: Kids practicing 2‑ and 4‑ft beanbag tosses outperformed those who only practiced at 3 ft when later tested at 3 ft.
- Cognitive example: Practicing multiple anagram versions for a word improved later performance on the specific anagram; art and bird classification studies show mixed exemplars improve concept learning and categorization.
- Coaching/real-world parallels: LA Kings adjusted one-touch pass drills to vary context; Coach Vince Dooley interleaved fundamentals, unit drills, full-team run-throughs, mental rehearsal, and spaced “special plays.”
- Reflection: Regular short reflection (what happened, what worked, what to change) adds retrieval + elaboration to consolidate experience into better future performance.

## 4) Embrace Difficulties
- Desirable difficulties (that you can overcome): Spacing, interleaving, variation, retrieval, and generation slow perceived progress but improve long-term retention, transfer, and discrimination.
- Memory workflow:
- Encoding → working memory.
- Consolidation → long-term memory over hours/days; links to prior knowledge.
- Retrieval → makes memories malleable again; reconsolidation updates and strengthens them and adds more retrieval routes.
- Mental models: Interconnected representations support quick recognition/response across varied situations (e.g., batters reading subtle pitch cues; pilots applying procedures).
- Try first, then learn: Attempting a solution before being shown it (with later feedback) improves learning, even if the attempt errs.

## 5) Avoid Illusions of Knowing
- Metacognitive blind spots: Fluency of texts/lectures and quick improvement during massed practice create a false sense of mastery; we often don’t know what we don’t know.
- Typical traps: Highlighting and rereading; relying on clear slides/notes; “I recognize this” ≠ “I can explain/use this.”
- Calibrate with objective checks:
- Self-tests with answers written out; concept explanations in your own words; cumulative quizzes; applying ideas to fresh examples.
- Use testing to find weak spots and re-study those; students who only reread tend to be overconfident.
- Habit shifts: Space metacognitive checks; treat errors as data; separate the feeling of familiarity from actual retrievability/use.

## 6) Get Beyond Learning Styles
- Matching instruction to a preferred “style” (visual/auditory, etc.) lacks solid empirical support; don’t limit inputs.
- What works reliably: Prior knowledge, building structure (rules/relationships), retrieval, spacing, interleaving, elaboration, generation, reflection.
- Successful intelligence mindset: Own outcomes—define the target skill/knowledge, list the sub-competencies, find resources, and deliberately practice with feedback.
- Different learner tendencies:
- Structure builders extract rules and hierarchies.
- Example-leaning learners can and should still force structure: compare/contrast multiple examples simultaneously, surface common rules, organize into frameworks.
- Dynamic testing: Continuously probe for unknowns, then aim training at them; don’t only polish strengths.
- From knowledge to knowhow: Build scaffolds and metaphors (e.g., “winding stair” for an investment model: treads = downside protections; risers = upside drivers), moving beyond isolated facts to a working model that guides action.

## 7) Increase Your Abilities
- Growth mindset and grit: Ability is expandable; disciplined, persistent effort matters more than fixed IQ for high achievement.
- Deliberate practice (not mere repetition): Goal-directed, feedback-rich efforts just beyond current ability, sustained over time, build large repertoires of patterns and chunked procedures that feel automatic.
- Mnemonics as temporary scaffolds:
- Use method of loci, vivid imagery, and structured associations to encode arbitrary information; retire them as knowledge integrates into mental models.
- Building complex performance:
- Musicians memorize by understanding harmony/voice-leading and “the map” of a piece; slow, no‑score practice → gradual speed-up → coordinated, automatic execution.
- Bottom line: Effortful learning physically reshapes the brain’s networks—more robust circuits, faster access, broader capability.

## 8) Make It Stick (How to Apply)
- Three keystones (do all):
- Retrieval practice: After initial exposure, close the source and recall/answer—key ideas, definitions, links, examples; write them. Use end-of-chapter questions and practice tests.
- Spacing: Distribute study across days/weeks; revisit earlier material often; expect some forgetting—reloading strengthens memory.
- Interleaving: Mix topics and problem types; in sets, switch before you feel “done”; make practice cumulative so old material keeps returning.
- High-leverage complements:
- Elaboration: Explain in your own words; analogies, metaphors, visuals; create one-page “summary sheets” that depict systems and how they interrelate.
- Generation: Predict main ideas before reading; attempt problems before class/solutions; you’ll learn more from the correction.
- Reflection: Brief weekly paragraphs—what you learned, how it connects to life/prior knowledge, what to try next.
- Calibration: Treat practice tests as real; check answers; focus on misses.
- Mnemonics: For lists/orders/terms, build memory palaces or peg systems; integrate into conceptual models over time.
- Role-specific patterns:
- Students: Convert notes to Q&A; weekly spiral review of prior units; shuffle flashcards; mix problem sets; plan retrieval sessions on a calendar; avoid marathon rereads.
- Lifelong learners/professionals: Practice like you play (simulations, cases, demos); vary conditions; keep a reflection log; schedule spaced refreshers to prevent skill atrophy.
- Teachers/trainers: Swap some lecture time for frequent low-stakes quizzes with feedback; use clickers/short writes; make assessments cumulative; spiral key concepts; provide weekly emailed question sets to enforce spacing; add simulations/role plays.
- Mini-checklist mindset:
- If learning feels frictionless, be skeptical.
- Test yourself early and often; don’t just reread.
- Space and mix; vary conditions.
- Compare/contrast examples; extract rules; build structure.
- Expect errors; use feedback to aim the next rep.
- Use mnemonics for the arbitrary; retire them as models form.
- Keep going—effort grows ability.