Want to Make Learning Stick? Make it Harder
Let’s face it: We want things to be easy. Like rivers that flow around mountains instead of going through them, we usually seek the path of least resistance in our lives. We choose the escalator over the stairs and the movie over the book. But it’s clear that easier isn’t always better. In fact, making things more difficult can often lead to better outcomes. Taking the stairs is better for your physical health than taking the escalator precisely because the stairs are more difficult. The same is true for learning.
Whether you’re studying for the SAT, teaching math in elementary school, or trying to improve your golf game, decades of research in the learning sciences have revealed that introducing difficulties, or challenges, during practice can greatly improve retention. Dr. Robert Bjork, Distinguished Research Professor of Psychology at UCLA, coined the term desirable difficulties to capture the revolutionary idea that short-term pains can lead to long-term gains in learning.
I’ll now provide a brief and general description of three desirable difficulties that have enjoyed a wealth of empirical support over the years and, therefore, should be implemented widely and frequently.
(1) Spaced practice. I, like many of you I presume, crammed a lot when I was in school, especially in college. I’d study the material over and over again for hours on end. This is what learning scientists call massed practice, and research shows that it’s ineffective when it comes to learning. It might feel like it’s working in the moment, but it won’t lead to the type of lasting retention and meaningful understanding we seek. For that to happen, spacing out study or review sessions with time is a much better way to go. If you’re a student, studying in three one-hour chunks is better than studying for three hours straight. The amount of time spent studying is exactly the same, but the spaced schedule will lead to much better retention. If you’re a teacher, consider reviewing important content every couple of weeks to help the information stick.
(2) Interleaved practice. Suppose you want to improve two of your swim strokes — say, your backstroke and butterfly. If you’re like most people, you would put in all your practice with the backstroke before moving on to the butterfly (or vice versa). This is…