Into cognitive theory: Making it stick, How we learn, and more smudging

I recently finished reading Make it stick by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roedigger III, and Mark A. McDaniel, published 2014 by Harvard University Press. The Kindle version is available here; a summary version is also available on Kindle here.

What I like about the book is summed up in this paragraph:

Much of how we structure training and schooling is based on learning theories that have been handed down to us, and these are shaped by our own sense of what works, a sensibility drawn from our personal experiences as teachers, coaches, students, and mere humans at large on the earth. How we teach is largely a mix of theory, lore, and intuition. But over the last forty years and more, cognitive psychologists have been working to build a body of evidence to clarify what works and to discover the strategies that get results (p.7). 

The difference is between common sense (likely a projection of our own preferences!) and evidence when it comes to promoting effective learning. Without giving detail away from the book here are some key themes of cognitive science:

1. Learning requires effort. 
2. We (and our learners) are not good judges on whether or not we are learning well. 
3. (Re)reading text and massed practice of new skills are popular but inefficient means of learning. 
4. Spaced repetition of key ideas at certain times greatly improves learning. 
5. Interleaving of different ideas and varying the practice of skills greatly improves learning and competence. 
6. A foundation of prior knowledge is a requirement for additional learning. 

As an example of the importance of evidence over common sense, the book proposes the power of post-study quizzes ("A single, simple quiz after reading a text or hearing a lecture produces better learning and remembering than rereading the text or reviewing lecture notes", p.3). In some e-learning circles post-content quizzes are poo-poo'd; used well (such as with tools like Cerego) they can be very powerful means of assisting students to master key ideas. Effort into effective quiz design is a service to learners.

The book also refers to learning as an exercise of schematic development (refer earlier post): 

People who learn to extract the key ideas from new material and organise them into a mental model and connect that model to prior knowledge show an advantage in learning complex mastery. A mental model is a mental representation of some external reality... every time you learn something new, you change the brain - the residue of your experiences is stored. (pp.5-6). 

The term "residue" there brings me back to my obsession with smudges (again, earlier post!)

I read Make it stick right after Carey's How we learn: The surprising truth about when, where, and why it happens (published by Macmillan in 2015; Kindle version available here). Carey reinforces the cognitive science surveyed in Make it stick and adds further insight into the benefits of distraction and forgetting! In the interests of brevity I'll draw just this quote from How we learn: 

The brain does not store facts, ideas, and experiences like a computer does, as a file that is clicked open, always displaying the identical image. It embeds them in networks of perceptions, fact, and thoughts, slightly different combinations of which bubble up each time. And that just retrieved memory does not overwrite the previous one but intertwines and overlaps with it. Nothing is completely lost. but the memory trace is altered and for good (Loc 370). 

More smudging! The beauty of cognitive science is that it provides insight into how the brain receives, filters, stores, retrieves and builds on information and knowledge. Each of these activities is a foundational element of learning. For effective TEL, the Learning should come first - and books such as Make it stick and How we learn provide valuable insight into the cognitive canon.