Just Finished Reading Make It Stick by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III and Mark A. McDaniel

Make It Stick...a 2014 book I just read by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III and Mark A. McDaniel, has as its co-title The Science of Successful Learning.  I heard about it from a podcast of Steve Kaufmann, a polyglot who had also just read it and endorsed many of its points.  The premise of the book is that learning is more effective when approaching it in some ways that our traditional educational system tends to avoid.  Instead of learning material in blocks and regurgitating it on tests, the authors emphasize techniques such as expanding on the material as it is presented...sometimes even before the teacher lays it out in class.  Interleaving the material with other assignments also accomplishes the goal of spacing it more, with the result that, although it seems to be counterintuitive to memory retention and permanent learning, the opposite in fact happens, with the subject matter better learned.  Although I was interested in the book's topic and sympathetic to the authors' viewpoints, it was still...albeit probably necessary...rather bathed in academic language and something of a slog to get through.  One thing brought up struck me personally: the notion that if you pick certain specific settings to consistently do your learning, then recalling those same settings can be a great aid in recalling what was learned.  It's the first time I have heard anyone affirm this truth that I have known for decades.  There's plenty to digest in Make It Stick...I probably should have assiduously followed its own suggestions in reading it...