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465 reviews for:
Super Summary Study Guide: Make It Stick
Mark A. McDaniel, Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III
4.04 AVERAGE
465 reviews for:
Super Summary Study Guide: Make It Stick
Mark A. McDaniel, Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III
4.04 AVERAGE
There was some good information packed into this book, and some great stories that put things into perspective as a teacher. My one issue was that the chapters seemed to drone on for a bit too long.
What did I just read?
No really, I just read this book and I can't tell you much about it. Not much stuck.
Isn't that confounding? How does a book about learning, about making things stick, absolutely fail at teaching the reader?
The premise is good. A couple of cognitive psychologist and a "story teller" (based on the writer's bio he's a part time consultant that wrote a few books) compile the science of learning research and present it through a narrative lens. Brilliant.
Anybody who has an interest in learning how to learn knows that stories help ideas stick. Our brains are designed to remember narratives, presenting the ideas with examples and relatable and/or interesting stories are guaranteed to bring the information to life and make it that more likely that the reader understands and remembers on a deeper level.
So... what happened? Why can't I remember what I just read?
Here's the thing, I remember the stories. There was the cop who shot a guy in the penis, the cop who almost got shot but didn't because, in her words, "Action is better than reaction," the CEO who swindled paperboys in his youth, the pilot who almost crashed, the other pilot that almost crash, and the marine who landed on another marine's parachute.
All interesting stories. Not good, not in 2023 at least, but memorable. Told well enough so that they stuck in my head with a beginning, middle, and end.
I can remember the stories, and I can remember the concepts simply because I have read a lot of cognitive psychology books before and have my degree in psychology so already knew a lot of the stuff, but I cannot connect the concepts with the stories for deeper understanding because they do not connect.
They do not connect. The stories are just there, it almost seems like the "story teller" already had some of these interviews in his back pocket and shoe horned them in without really understanding the science himself. I can recount the stories, but I can't tell you what concept they were supposed to illustrate because they did not illustrate the concepts particularly well.
It was a missed opportunity. I think this book was trying so hard to be inspirational, to be a graduation gift, to be the kind of book traditionally successful people list among their favorites, that it failed to actually teach the concepts.
It provides the illusion of knowing (ha, I lied. I do remember some stuff!). A reader could read this, nod along with each point and recall the "inspirational" stories, remember a few concepts (test yourself, vary your learning, use mnemonics), and in the end think they understand. They'll think they have an edge and attribute their successes to their superior ability to learn without really stopping to consider how that may not be the case.
The whole book is a failure. I cannot fathom how one of their main points, to the point they discussed it ad nauseum, was self testing and yet they included no opportunities for self testing in the book. Even the last chapter where they included more relevant examples and told the story of a professor who models self testing to her students did not clue them in to the fact that they could have modeled self testing within the text. What a lost opportunity!
Or mnemonics! They have a whole chapter on mnemonics and yet failed to make one for their own for their own concepts.
Also, they start the book completely against the idea of memorization and massed practice and end the book with mnemonics and becoming an expert through 10,000 hrs of practice and while I know the concepts are different I would have liked to have seen the differences discussed in depth on page rather than separated by many chapters. It's not a contradiction per se, and I do believe they sort of mention it as an aside in their final chapter, but if they are going to talk about the benefits of varied practice and learning how to differentiate concepts as a tool for learning then they missed an opportunity to explore similar but different ideas that could have increased understanding (and would have stuck in my head!)
So that brings me to the final chapter, or what I am going to call the "oops chapter."
The Oops Chapter begins by explaining that they didn't want to get too prescriptive with their advice, they wanted to present the material and allow the reader to come away with their own philosophy on how to learn better and more effectively. I agree with this, I love me some practical advice, but I hate when my pop psychology gets too self-helpy.
However, they say that early readers wanted more practical advice so they added the 8th chapter to include that. Because they made a collasal oops, they failed to teach the reader in 7 chapters so had to make a freaking CRAM chapter with all the information packed in to try to get the reader to take something away. Another way they failed to take their own advice!
They would not have needed to add the last chapter if they had succeeded in their original concept.
The final chapter is the best chapter in the book because it does elaborate a little using far more relevant examples and stories. Is the advice practical? I mean, how many times can you tell the reader to self-test or vary their practice? It's practical, sure, but I feel like the problem is that they failed to show what that looks like in real life with real people outside of school or training. They included a small section for lifetime learners (hey that's me I guess?) and I did enjoy the story about the actor who learned his lines so thoroughly that he could take over the lead role on a moment's notice, but what does that mean for a nerd at home who just wants to know things? Fortunately I have read better books about this topic (many that were cited in this one), otherwise I would not have a clue.
Or I would think I had a clue, but that would be an illusion.
This book is garbage. I gave it 2 stars because it is one of my favorite topics and there was some information that got me thinking and connecting to other things I have read, but it is by far the least effective book about learning I have read recently. It might be because it is outdated, it might be because it tries way too hard to be an inspirational book about success, but either way it is an absolute failure and does not deserve a spot on your book shelf next to Mindsets and Thinking Fast and Slow.
The best thing this book did for me was help illustrate how not to present information if you want it to resonate with your audience. Wasn't learning by failure one of their points? I guess it works vicariously, too.
No really, I just read this book and I can't tell you much about it. Not much stuck.
Isn't that confounding? How does a book about learning, about making things stick, absolutely fail at teaching the reader?
The premise is good. A couple of cognitive psychologist and a "story teller" (based on the writer's bio he's a part time consultant that wrote a few books) compile the science of learning research and present it through a narrative lens. Brilliant.
Anybody who has an interest in learning how to learn knows that stories help ideas stick. Our brains are designed to remember narratives, presenting the ideas with examples and relatable and/or interesting stories are guaranteed to bring the information to life and make it that more likely that the reader understands and remembers on a deeper level.
So... what happened? Why can't I remember what I just read?
Here's the thing, I remember the stories. There was the cop who shot a guy in the penis, the cop who almost got shot but didn't because, in her words, "Action is better than reaction," the CEO who swindled paperboys in his youth, the pilot who almost crashed, the other pilot that almost crash, and the marine who landed on another marine's parachute.
All interesting stories. Not good, not in 2023 at least, but memorable. Told well enough so that they stuck in my head with a beginning, middle, and end.
I can remember the stories, and I can remember the concepts simply because I have read a lot of cognitive psychology books before and have my degree in psychology so already knew a lot of the stuff, but I cannot connect the concepts with the stories for deeper understanding because they do not connect.
They do not connect. The stories are just there, it almost seems like the "story teller" already had some of these interviews in his back pocket and shoe horned them in without really understanding the science himself. I can recount the stories, but I can't tell you what concept they were supposed to illustrate because they did not illustrate the concepts particularly well.
It was a missed opportunity. I think this book was trying so hard to be inspirational, to be a graduation gift, to be the kind of book traditionally successful people list among their favorites, that it failed to actually teach the concepts.
It provides the illusion of knowing (ha, I lied. I do remember some stuff!). A reader could read this, nod along with each point and recall the "inspirational" stories, remember a few concepts (test yourself, vary your learning, use mnemonics), and in the end think they understand. They'll think they have an edge and attribute their successes to their superior ability to learn without really stopping to consider how that may not be the case.
The whole book is a failure. I cannot fathom how one of their main points, to the point they discussed it ad nauseum, was self testing and yet they included no opportunities for self testing in the book. Even the last chapter where they included more relevant examples and told the story of a professor who models self testing to her students did not clue them in to the fact that they could have modeled self testing within the text. What a lost opportunity!
Or mnemonics! They have a whole chapter on mnemonics and yet failed to make one for their own for their own concepts.
Also, they start the book completely against the idea of memorization and massed practice and end the book with mnemonics and becoming an expert through 10,000 hrs of practice and while I know the concepts are different I would have liked to have seen the differences discussed in depth on page rather than separated by many chapters. It's not a contradiction per se, and I do believe they sort of mention it as an aside in their final chapter, but if they are going to talk about the benefits of varied practice and learning how to differentiate concepts as a tool for learning then they missed an opportunity to explore similar but different ideas that could have increased understanding (and would have stuck in my head!)
So that brings me to the final chapter, or what I am going to call the "oops chapter."
The Oops Chapter begins by explaining that they didn't want to get too prescriptive with their advice, they wanted to present the material and allow the reader to come away with their own philosophy on how to learn better and more effectively. I agree with this, I love me some practical advice, but I hate when my pop psychology gets too self-helpy.
However, they say that early readers wanted more practical advice so they added the 8th chapter to include that. Because they made a collasal oops, they failed to teach the reader in 7 chapters so had to make a freaking CRAM chapter with all the information packed in to try to get the reader to take something away. Another way they failed to take their own advice!
They would not have needed to add the last chapter if they had succeeded in their original concept.
The final chapter is the best chapter in the book because it does elaborate a little using far more relevant examples and stories. Is the advice practical? I mean, how many times can you tell the reader to self-test or vary their practice? It's practical, sure, but I feel like the problem is that they failed to show what that looks like in real life with real people outside of school or training. They included a small section for lifetime learners (hey that's me I guess?) and I did enjoy the story about the actor who learned his lines so thoroughly that he could take over the lead role on a moment's notice, but what does that mean for a nerd at home who just wants to know things? Fortunately I have read better books about this topic (many that were cited in this one), otherwise I would not have a clue.
Or I would think I had a clue, but that would be an illusion.
This book is garbage. I gave it 2 stars because it is one of my favorite topics and there was some information that got me thinking and connecting to other things I have read, but it is by far the least effective book about learning I have read recently. It might be because it is outdated, it might be because it tries way too hard to be an inspirational book about success, but either way it is an absolute failure and does not deserve a spot on your book shelf next to Mindsets and Thinking Fast and Slow.
The best thing this book did for me was help illustrate how not to present information if you want it to resonate with your audience. Wasn't learning by failure one of their points? I guess it works vicariously, too.
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
Fluency illusion result from our tendency to mistake fluency with a text for mastery of its content
When practice is spaced, interleaved and varied, it requires more effort. You feel the increased effort, but not the benefits the effort produces.
I have to admit from the get go: I didn't read this book cover to cover, I read the first chapters, then the one on illusions of knowing and then chapter on study tips!
This book's main question is: how do you study in a way that makes you more likely to remember it in the long-term?
Its main idea is that we are subject to cognitive illusions that push us towards ineffective study strategies like learning things really fast or the illusion of fluency.
Take aways:
- space out repetition. doing a little bit regularly is much better for long term memory than learning something fast.
- re-reading is useless. Use retrieval: ask yourself to explain something without looking, and then look at what it was. Everytime you struggle to remember you make the memory much stronger, even though it feels like a struggle!
- doing smaller doses and mixing up topics and problems instead of going "block 1 block 2" is more effective for long-term retrieval
- Generation is another good practice for extra remembering. It's basically elaborating in some way: reexplaining in your own words, making connections with previous knowledge, with your life, making an analogy...
- We need to test ourselves and use free recall to fight the illusion of fluency. The illusion of fluency is when we read something and it feels like we already know it because we can read it fluidly and understand the explanation. But this is an illusion because in fact we are incapable of re-explaining it. So to avoid this, we need to quiz ourselves.
- Difficulties help us remember better in the long term. Learning that feels too easy is also easily forgotten.
Opinion
I learnt a few things in the books and I think the "illusion of fluency" is an especially helpful concept I can relate to a lot as someone who reads a ton but rarely can recite what I learnt. I think the study tips were valid; if that's all you want then just read chapter 8. I also think that reading about how to learn most effectively is very motivating for me; I wish teachers explained things more about this
The problems with this book however:
- the storytelling was awful. All the analogies are targeted towards traditionally masculine interests – baseball, planes and cops. It didn't help me understand and it felt quite hostile as a woman. I skipped a lot of paragraphs.
- This book is very centered on how to get something into your long-term memory, which is assumed to be the definition of good education. As someone doing a humanities degree, I really wonder what to take away from it since I don't have any exams but essays. There are no humanities examples in this whole book.
I thought that "Why students don't like school" was a more valuable book than this one
This book was very enlightening. I wish I had read it before college. This book teaches what learning science has discovered about the most effective ways to learn any subject and also debunks many commonly held misconceptions about how to study most effectively. I can say that I would definitely have approached my studies differently and would have studied differently than I did in college. I will definitely incorporate what I have learned from this book anytime I have something I need to learn in the future. The biggest takeaways I have are to have a growth mindset, the importance of retrieval or practice for learning, and how vital elaboration/reflection are when learning especially when reading nonfiction. The thought that I'm left with after finishing this book is that learning is not an easy thing, and this book can't give you the motivation you need for something you think you should learn, but when you value the knowledge or skill you are trying to learn the strategies outlined in this book can help you get there effectively and without wasted effort.
Active recall and spaced repetition
If you don't have time to read the book, there it is, distilled into four words.
I spent my youth questioning the education system. Turns out the people running the show do actually know what they're doing.
I'd suggest everyone in STEM fields to read this once. If that's not possible, even the last couple of chapters are worth reading.
My heartfelt thanks to Ali Abdaal for recommending the book. I wish I'd heard of it sooner.
If you don't have time to read the book, there it is, distilled into four words.
I spent my youth questioning the education system. Turns out the people running the show do actually know what they're doing.
I'd suggest everyone in STEM fields to read this once. If that's not possible, even the last couple of chapters are worth reading.
My heartfelt thanks to Ali Abdaal for recommending the book. I wish I'd heard of it sooner.
I read about 10-15 non-fiction books a month, and I always want to figure out how to retain what I’m learning. When I learned of this book, I had to get it, and it didn’t disappoint. The conventional ideas of learning and memorization are wrong, and this book explains why using science. More importantly, it teaches you effective methods of learning.
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
