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…
