Post 487: Make It Stick Book Review

 Post 487: Make It Stick

 

 

I loved reading the book, Make It Stick because it teaches teachers how to make more effective lessons that students will remember hence the title, Make It Stick.

I remember when I was in third grade, we were learning cursive handwriting. I complained to my teacher, "Why do we have to write the same letter over and over again?" My third grade teacher said, "The more you practice writing, the better you get. Practice makes perfect."

If I were to summarize this book, Make It Stick, in three words, it would be 'Practice Makes Perfect." This does not mean rote memorization of the same fact over and over again, but it means that the teacher finds different ways of interweaving the same facts into his lesson under different contexts and different modalities.

Instead of just massively memorizing a whole bunch of facts for a test, and then forgetting the facts after the test, Make It Stick teaches teachers and learners alike to go over these same facts over a long period of time in different ways. Teachers can interweave these same facts in different lessons covering other topics, students can use index cards to write down facts to remember and go over these index cards over and over again in the bus, in the car, at work and whenever you have time.

In the past, I used to just teach one topic one time for that one test. I used to just have students study for the test, and I would teach for the test. Make It Stick says that massively studying for a test produces a false sense of familiarity with the material where students think they have mastered the concept simply by regurgitating facts on a test.

The true way to master a concept is like when a pilot knows how to land a plane even in an emergency. In the pilot's head is the checklist he needs to do to properly land the plane despite the emergency and his nerves. He knows the flying checklist automatically in his head without having to think about it to remember, well this is how familiar students get with material if they study the material over a long period of time by going over the material through doing projects, discussions, debates, writing papers in class--not just one massive test.

Teachers would interweave the same set of facts throughout their class so that students hear the same facts under different contexts. For instance, when teaching grammar, I review grammar rules for the test. After the quiz is over, I still go over these same grammar rules when I correct their papers, or ask them to apply these grammar rules to avoid sentence fragments or revise their essays.

For me, the greatest benefit of reading this book was learning how to interweave the same facts into other lessons and units so that my students at the end of my writing class know essay structure automatically in their heads just like the pilot knows automatically how to land a plane in an emergency. I highly recommend this book for learners to learn how to learn, and for teachers to learn how to teach more effective lessons.