I am honored to share my recent article for Edutopia, "Making Learning Meaningful and Lasting," in which I interview Mark A. McDaniel, co-author of Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning. I've provided the first few paragraphs below.
Even after eight years of teaching history, I struggle with helping my students retain and make effective use of their learning. Several years ago, a returning senior asked if she could retake the final exam in my United States history course in September. She had earned a solid "A" just three months earlier, but after a long and eventful summer, she wanted to know how much she remembered.
As it turned out, not much. My once-shining star had devolved into just an average student, earning a "C" on the same exam. She couldn’t recall historical intricacies that once rolled off her tongue, nor could she effectively articulate the main arguments for American territorial expansion from 1820 to 1860, and the impact this had in leading up to the Civil War. Little deep or lasting "learning" had taken root.
To better understand why this happens, I recently spoke to Mark A. McDaniel, co-author of Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning and Director of the Center for Integrative Research on Cognition, Learning, and Education (CIRCLE) at Washington University in St. Louis.
If you would like to read the entire article, please click here. I would love to hear your thoughts.