Make It Stick

“Working memory” refers to the amount of information you can hold in mind while working through a problem, especially in the face of distraction.

Second, we need to keep learning and remembering all our lives.

You can practice generation when reading new class material by trying to explain beforehand the key ideas you expect to find in the material and how you expect they will relate to your prior knowledge. Then read the material to see if you were correct.

that cultivating the habit of reflecting on one’s experiences, of making them into a…

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Memory can be distorted in many ways. People interpret a story in light of their world knowledge, imposing order where none had been present so as to make a more logical story. Memory is a reconstruction. We cannot remember every aspect of an event, so we remember those elements that have greatest emotional significance for us, and we fill in the g

Trying to solve a problem before being taught the solution leads to better learning, even when errors are made in the attempt.

The process of strengthening these mental representations for long-term memory is called consolidation.

Frequent low-stakes quizzes in class help the instructor verify that students are in fact learning as well as they appear to be and reveal the areas where extra attention is needed.

This process is called “memory conformity” or the “social contagion of memory”: one person’s error can “infect” another person’s memory.