Learning is at the center of everything in education, so understanding how the human brain processes, retains, and retrieves new information is essential to student growth. In this special crossover episode, Susan joins forces with fellow Amplify podcast hosts Eric Cross from Science Connections, and Dan Meyer and Bethany Lockhart Johnson from Math Teacher Lounge, to discuss what learning really means across subjects. Susan is also joined by Peter C. Brown, author of the book Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning, to dive into the cognitive science behind how our brains learn and ways you can apply that research in your classroom right now!
Show notes:
Quotes:
“As much as I'm into the science of learning, I really wanna be into, like, the humility of teaching” —Dan Meyer
“Learning is this fluid thing. It's social, it's dynamic, it's experiential. It is the process of acquiring knowledge and understanding, and developing these behavioral skills, but it's also embedded in this bigger context of your background, your identity.” —Eric Cross
“For myself as an educator, I am just a lily pad as [students] hop across the pond, but I want to be the best lily pad possible. I want to give them the strongest surface. I want to give them the most security that I can.” —Eric Cross
“There's new ways to solve the problem. There's new ways to look at the problem. There's new ways to take apart the problem and put it back together. And for me, that's when learning happens.” —Bethany Lockhart Johnson
“The scientists have discovered that for something to be learned and retained, you need to help the brain do that by practicing, retrieving it from memory, and practicing explaining it in your own words to somebody else asking.” —Peter C. Brown
“There's really great evidence that we can then teach our students or maybe even ourselves how to be a better learner.” —Susan Lambert
“Joy in the classroom is a much better context for learning than anxiety.” —Susan Lambert
Learning is at the center of everything in education, so understanding how the human brain processes, retains, and retrieves new information is essential to student growth. In this special crossover episode, Susan joins forces with fellow Amplify podcast hosts Eric Cross from Science Connections, and Dan Meyer and Bethany Lockhart Johnson from Math Teacher Lounge, to discuss what learning really means across subjects. Susan is also joined by Peter C. Brown, author of the book Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning, to dive into the cognitive science behind how our brains learn and ways you can apply that research in your classroom right now!
Show notes:
Quotes:
“As much as I'm into the science of learning, I really wanna be into, like, the humility of teaching” —Dan Meyer
“Learning is this fluid thing. It's social, it's dynamic, it's experiential. It is the process of acquiring knowledge and understanding, and developing these behavioral skills, but it's also embedded in this bigger context of your background, your identity.” —Eric Cross
“For myself as an educator, I am just a lily pad as [students] hop across the pond, but I want to be the best lily pad possible. I want to give them the strongest surface. I want to give them the most security that I can.” —Eric Cross
“There's new ways to solve the problem. There's new ways to look at the problem. There's new ways to take apart the problem and put it back together. And for me, that's when learning happens.” —Bethany Lockhart Johnson
“The scientists have discovered that for something to be learned and retained, you need to help the brain do that by practicing, retrieving it from memory, and practicing explaining it in your own words to somebody else asking.” —Peter C. Brown
“There's really great evidence that we can then teach our students or maybe even ourselves how to be a better learner.” —Susan Lambert
“Joy in the classroom is a much better context for learning than anxiety.” —Susan Lambert
This is Susan Lambert, and welcome to Science of Reading: The Podcast. We're just two weeks away from launching our seventh season of the podcast. But before we do that, I'm excited to tell you about this very special episode. For a long time now, we've wanted to produce an episode all about the science of learning and how educators can apply lessons from that research to their own work. And finally, on this episode, I'm joined by Peter C. Brown, co-author of the popular and powerful book "Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning." Peter does a great job distilling the research on learning in an approachable way. Of course, this topic isn't just relevant to literacy. So we thought now would be the perfect time to bring a couple of VIP guests, my fellow co-hosts of Amplify podcasts. On this episode, I'm going to be joined by my colleague Eric Cross , host of Science Connections, as well as Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer , co-hosts of Math Teacher Lounge. Before I dive in with Peter, they're going to kick us off with a short conversation about learning and how they think about what it really means to learn in their fields. And then before we close out the episode, Bethany, Dan and Eric are going to give a sneak preview of what's ahead on the new seasons of their shows. After hearing Bethany, Dan and Eric talk about what they're working on, I was so excited to listen, so be sure to stick around for the end. But first, let me introduce Bethany, Dan, and Eric. Well, I am really excited to bring to our listeners an episode of the podcast that brings together all of our friends from the Amplify podcast family. So thank you for joining me, Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer from Math Teacher Lounge, and Eric Cross from Science Connections. I'm so glad to have you all here today.
Eric Cross:Yeah, it's good to be here.
Dan Meyer:Happy to be here.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson:You know, teaching can feel so isolating, so being all in this space together is just bringing me so much joy. Thank you for making this happen.
Speaker 1:And it's so nice that, our listeners don't know this, but we can see each other, and that's even better. So there's nothing worse than blank screens. You know, in a few minutes, we're gonna share an interview with Peter Brown, who is the lead author of the book "Make It Stick" , all about the Science of Learning. It applies to all of our subjects, not just literacy. That's one of the reasons I thought it would be great for you to join me, besides the fact that we're gonna talk about your upcoming episodes in terms of a new season. And so that's really exciting, perfect timing, relaunching all of the podcast seasons. But before we get to that, I thought this would be a really good moment to talk just a bit about learning. You know, we talk a lot about teaching and what teaching should look like and strategies for teachers and science-based instruction. How about , let's talk a little bit about learning. So when y'all think about learning, maybe we'll throw it to Dan and Bethany first. When you think about learning, what does that look like in mathematics? Or what do you think about?
Dan Meyer:Yeah, huge, huge question. I think it's worth, I want to think about this tag that we hear so much about, the science of learning, for a second. I might be a little bit skeptical for a second here. Whatever value it has for teachers, and there is some, we gotta admit, first of all, it's a really catchy tag, right? Like, if I was gonna sell vacuum cleaners, I would definitely go in with the branding of "the science of vacuuming."
Susan Lambert:Nice.
Dan Meyer:It just communicates a certain mystique and gravitas, right? As much as I'm into the science of learning, I really wanna be into, like, the humility of teaching. We are downstream, as teachers, from so many social forces. The classroom itself is a massively complex social organism. The same lesson that worked one period doesn't the next period. So anyway, that's how I'm feeling about science of learning. I want to tune in, I wanna be a little bit skeptical. I wanna be humble , as an educator. The one principle from science of learning that I love and just hold onto, and I've not fully explored the implications of it, and probably will never over my whole life, is from the sixties. It's a quote from David Ausubel, and it's that the most important single factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows. Ascertain that and teach them accordingly. There's so much there for us to mine and explore.
Susan Lambert:Love that. Bethany, what do you wanna add on to your co-host's ideas?
Bethany Lockhart Johnson:Yeah, well, I love that quote. I hadn't heard that quote. I personally, when I think of science of learning, I always think that it's evolving, right? Like, we're always learning new things, we're always redefining, we're revisiting our definitions. We're looking at, what did we think it means? And then we get a whole new batch of educators who are like, "Oh, but have you thought of this?" And I just think that, I'm so curious to hear how Peter, how he talks about the evolution of the science of learning and how we do apply it to, you know, multiple subjects. I'm really curious about that. I think about learning in mathematics, really, I always think of it in terms of openness and spaciousness, where we enter these ideas in mathematics, not assuming that we know the answer, right? Like, there's new ways to solve the problem. There's new ways to look at the problem. There's new ways to take apart the problem and put it back together. And for me, that's when learning happens. So I feel like that is learning, right? We're learning through the process of just diving in and playing and being joyful. And, you know, that's something that I hope happens in more classrooms. There's joyful exploration. And for me that is so key to learning in mathematics.
Susan Lambert:Hmm , great points, great points. How about you, Eric? When you think about science, since that's the area you're sort of focused on, what are you thinking about learning as it applies to science?
Eric Cross:Well, I agree a lot with what Dan and Bethany said, and I appreciate Dan's humility and talking about that as educators coming at it through that lens. I felt like he was just in my classroom when he said that one lesson that works one period might not work the next period. Like, I just left the classroom and I was like, "Are you observing me today?" Learning is this fluid thing, it's social, it's dynamic, it's experiential, it is the process of acquiring knowledge and understanding and developing these behavioral skills, but it's also embedded in this bigger context of your background, your identity, all of these different factors contribute to learning. And I think as educators, one of the things that we're now starting to focus on more is how dynamic learning really is, and how much these factors really do contribute to being able to do the things that we want students to be able to do, acquire the knowledge, and ultimately become the people, the best version of them that they can become. And for myself as an educator, I am just a lily pad as they hop across the pond. But I want to be the best lily pad possible. I want to give them the strongest surface. I want to give them the most security that I can. And I, as a middle school science teacher, I want to create opportunities and experiences for them because, really at this age, developmentally, is really when they start identifying what I can do and what I can't do. It's interesting when they say, "I'm a math person," or "I'm a science person," or "I'm not good at that." We hear that self-talk often and that impacts their learning.
Susan Lambert:Mm -hmm .
Eric Cross:Their own self-efficacy. How I think of myself, how I view myself as a person. And so I find myself in this stage of my career where I'm at, that learning is heavily based on a social dynamic and experiences of my seventh graders, my 12- and 13-year-olds, you know, that skinny part of the hourglass where they're going from little kids to full-on teenagers. And they're going through that transition. And I've found that as I focus on that, the traditional style of learning that we want, we want them to perform and do well and be engaged and practice good habits. When I focus on the human aspect of them and who they are and their social dynamic, I find that there's growth in these other areas that are a little bit more measurable by traditional means.
Susan Lambert:I love all those ideas. And I think there's a couple of really good points that I'd like to communicate to our listeners before we sort of jump in and listen to what Peter has to say about the science of learning. One is, I really appreciate this idea that, you know, what works for one group of students or even what works for one student doesn't necessarily work for the next one. And this idea that learning is all about getting into the context of engagement and motivation and what you bring to the learning experience and your knowledge, which the knowledge builds on knowledge. So, y'all, really great points. I'm really excited to hear what Peter has to say to extend our understanding of this. But thanks so much for your comments about what learning means in your area and we'll sort of talk to you on the other side. And now I'm joined by Peter C. Brown, lead author of "Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning." Peter, welcome.
Peter C. Brown:Thank you very much, Susan . It's great to be with you.
Susan Lambert:I would love if you could tell our listeners just a little bit about this book "Make It Stick ," including maybe how you got involved in this project and who your co-authors are.
Peter C. Brown:Sure, yeah . My own background is a independent management consultant and writer. And I was approached by Henry Roediger, who is my brother-in-law, and Mark McDaniel , a colleague of his, they are both very highly regarded cognitive psychologists at Washington University in St . Louis. And I refer to Henry Roediger as Roddy , 'cause that's what we refer to him in the family, he's my wife's brother. And we were together, and he was saying that he and Mark were coming to the end of a 10-year series of research studies funded by a private foundation into the question "What leads to learning?" And they involved six different universities, I think there were 11 research scientists doing just a whole series of studies. And Roddy said, "Peter, we're coming to the end of this decade. And what we found and the way of answers to what leads to learning is not intuitive, and we're wondering how to get it out to a general audience. Would you consider writing a book with us?" And of course I said yes, and "Make It Stick" is the result of that project. I didn't enter it without some trepidation, being a nonscientist, but the collaboration of the scientists and a writer who believes in the power of storytelling turned out to be quite successful. It was published by Harvard University Press in 2014. It sold well over a million copies worldwide so far. And it's just continuing along.
Susan Lambert:Yeah, it's had quite a reach and quite an impact , including being on my shelf since it came out. And I think I've pulled it out several times , just to review it.
Peter C. Brown:Oh yeah, good.
Susan Lambert:Yeah. And so, thank you for agreeing to do this work. I feel like when we did our pre-call, we're sort of partners in work such that we're not researchers, but we're translators to help people in the field understand some of this, which is really important.
Peter C. Brown:Exactly.
Susan Lambert:So you said that the folks that you worked with are cognitive psychologists. This book is all about cognitive psychology. Can you tell our listeners what exactly cognitive psychology is?
Peter C. Brown:Well, cognitive psychology, as I've come to understand it, is how the brain works. It isn't the neural connections. It's a study of how people think and learn through doing objective research that helps us understand that. And the cognitive psychologists are saying, "If you do this as a learning strategy, do you remember it later? Can you connect it to what you already know? How successful is that strategy?" So they do lab tests of different kinds of things like rereading versus quizzing and all kinds of things like that. And they come out with objective, scientific-based measures on what works and what doesn't work.
Susan Lambert:So a decade worth of research has gone into this book? Did I hear that right?
Peter C. Brown:That's right. Well, it reaches back to earlier work as well. But there was 10 years of work, there were 11 high level cognitive psychologists , leading studies with their postdocs and their doctoral fellows in doing this research from six different American universities. So it was a very broad, solidly based-in-science set of findings. And it turns out from that research that what we are kind of intuitively drawn to do as a learning strategy, like rereading material, listening to lectures, practicing something over and over and over again, those strategies are pretty much labor in vain . They're not effective, they don't stick. And other things that are a little harder, there are strategies that help embed new learning in the mind and connect it to what we already know and be able to retrieve it again later and apply it.
Susan Lambert:We're gonna get into some of those in a minute, but I wanna point out that in the first chapter of your book, you take a little bit of time to talk about the differences between empirical evidence, theory, lore , intuition, and how they're all different. Can you say a few words about why that was important for you to include in this first chapter?
Peter C. Brown:Well, we want people to be able to lean into the book. Throughout the book we have put in end notes , and you can go to the back of the book and call up the scientific studies in which the claims are based , which are published through a peer review process. So we all have intuition about when we think we've learned something. It feels like we've learned it. If you pull an all-nighter before an exam and you get a , you feel like you're on top and you get a pretty good grade in the exam, you think "I know that stuff. See, I got a decent grade." [What] you don't know, is that over the next couple of weeks, most of it drains away. It gets forgotten.
Susan Lambert:Mm -hmm .
Peter C. Brown:So the difference between intuition and theory versus the empirical evidence of scientific research is when you put it to the test through the scientific process and measure it , you can be quite confident in the results that you get. If that test has to be able to be replicated by others and get similar results in order to be considered valid, would be when you publish that, those results, they go through a peer review process in which other scientists in the top of the field that you're writing about look at it and they say, yes, this is correct. This is based on the science, or here's a question about how something has been interpreted. And we challenge that and so forth. So our book, which is based on those kinds of studies that have been through that process, and the book itself went through a peer review process, which Harvard Press put it out through, and they all said, "The science is great, we're not so sure about the writing, it's a little colloquial," which I considered a compliment because we were trying to make it accessible and interesting and pull people through it.
Susan Lambert:So you accomplished that when they gave you that feedback!
Peter C. Brown:Yeah!
Susan Lambert:And true to form, I mean, the subtitle is "The Science of Successful Learning." This is really written to address not teaching—which, on this podcast, we talk a lot about teaching , teaching strategies, things kids need to be taught. But the frame on this is really all about learning, which I really, really love because it's applicable in all kinds of ways. What are some of the, I'd just love for you to unpack some of the things that you highlight in this book about learning, what's important about it.
Peter C. Brown:Yeah. Thank you for emphasizing that it's about learning and not about teaching. There are just some very fundamental ideas here that come to the surface very quickly. One is that when you learn something new, it has to go through the part of the brain where you have your working memory and you hold things in mind for a while . It's called the hippocampus, but something you wanna hang on to has to migrate then, overnight or over a couple of days, into long-term memory. And it has to be connected to something you already know. You can't learn something new if it doesn't connect to something you already know. So we've discovered—or, I say we, the scientists—have discovered that for something to be learned and retained, you need to help the brain do that by practicing retrieving it from memory, practicing explaining it in your own words to somebody else, asking yourself, "How does this relate to something I already know?" And so there are certain things the cognitive psychologists call "desirable difficulties" that help make learning stick. One is practice at retrieving it from memory. And that practice is most effective if it's spaced out over time. So instead of practicing your 20-foot putt, you know, over and over and over again and seeing improvement and going home thinking, "I've got that thing, I'm really much better at it." You don't realize it's all in short-term memory and it's not gonna be there when you come back. Whereas if you practice that at different times, different courses, that practice will be harder, but the improvement will be better because you are drawing on what you learned earlier and you're reactivating that and building on it. So practice it, retrieving from memory instead of rereading or listening, reviewing, not effective. The second one is spacing it out over time. So if you're going through learning different kinds of arithmetic or different kinds of episodes in history or what have you, don't just do a block and say, "Well, I've got that knocked," and go on and do another one and do another one, because you lose the earlier ones if you don't reach back and practice recalling that and connecting it to what you've learned since. So retrieve it from memory, space that out over time. And then another is, you learn better when you mix up the practice types in the domain you're trying to master. Let's say you're trying to learn how to find the volumes of different geometric solids like a sphere and a wedge and a cone, the usual way math books have presented that. You learn the formula for each of those. You learn the formula for a cone, then you get 10 problems to find the volume of a cone. You get really good at it. Then you have the formula for a wedge, and then you have a formula for a sphere , and you do those in a blocked fashion, the practice is blocked by the type of problem.
Susan Lambert:Mm-hmm.
Peter C. Brown:You could do very well during practice. And if you're tested later, you forget a very large percentage. The better method is to mix up those problems, have them come at you at random so that each time you get a problem, you have to identify the problem correctly and recall the formula correctly and apply it. That's more difficult. So during practice, you don't see as much improvement as you do when you block it. So you think, "I'm not learning it as well," but when you're tested later, it sticks. You are good at identifying the correct problem, identifying the correct formula, and applying it. You don't lose so much. So there's three really big ideas. Retrieve it, space it out, mix it up.
Susan Lambert:That's crazy. And I know you have a specific word for them. I think it's something, let's test my recall here and see if I've learned something, right?
Peter C. Brown:[Laughs] Yeah!
Susan Lambert:So we could say masked practice, retrieval practice, and interleaving? Is that the third one?
Peter C. Brown:Good for you. That was a word that was new to me. And I think it's new to most readers. It's what the scientists use, interleaving is, what they're saying, is to mix it up. Alternate. It's very interesting because in some of these studies, let's say people are learning to identify the works of painters and you show them many Picassos and then many Klees and then some other artists and another, many examples of each one. They wanna see many of this painter before they move on to many of that painter.
Susan Lambert:Right.
Peter C. Brown:And they feel they've got it well. Another group, which is shown just as many paintings, but it's a random sequence between these, don't feel like they're getting it so well, but when they're tested, the groups that got it randomly are much better at identifying a painting they haven't seen by one of those painters who did it.
Susan Lambert:Yeah.
Peter C. Brown:And yet they will tell you, I learned better if I get many examples of each one individually. It's not intuitive.
Susan Lambert:It's not intuitive. I'm gonna come back to that in a minute. But the other thing that I wanna say that this makes me think about early elementary kids, right? So my context is early readers and often we're like, "Wow, we don't wanna make it too hard for kids. We wanna scaffold their learning." But learning is hard work.
Peter C. Brown:Yes.
Susan Lambert:And when you say, oh you have to, it's almost like you have to forget it and then retrieve it and sort of forget it and then retrieve it. It's hard work.
Peter C. Brown:Mm-hmm. It is hard work. I identified with it , just because I grew up in a family, they had a workshop and you know, all of my siblings were older than me and they could do stuff I couldn't do. And I'd try it out on my own. I didn't ever wanna be watched because I knew I was gonna screw up, you know? But it ended up being a messy process of learning things. But I ended up with a very wide variety of things that I know how to do. So I think of kids going from crawling to walking. If you look at a kid just learning to stand up and then the kid is working, you know, unstably, looking at his mother, you know, 10 feet away, and making it across , that, you can see the brain is figuring this stuff out.
Susan Lambert:Right .
Peter C. Brown:And so if young people think about, "How was it when you learned how to ride a bike?" "How was it doing some of these games you liked to do on the computer? Did you get 'em all right from the beginning?"
Susan Lambert:That's right.
Peter C. Brown:"No." "Did you stick with it?" "I did." "Well, how did you figure it out?" "Well, I tried this, it didn't work, so I tried that." Exactly. So we have the experience personally, and if we can connect students to see in their own lives where they're highly motivated, they've tried to do something and finally figured it out and "A - ha, I'm pretty good," and they wanna show their friends, that's no different than what we're trying to learn in the classroom or if we're trying to learn how to read or how to write or on the athletic field. It's the same way.
Susan Lambert:Yeah. Now I wanna go back to this one about, so I think I read , or I actually, truth be told, I listened to this book again while I was walking the dog. So I was just listening to it .
Peter C. Brown:Was the dog unhappy??
Susan Lambert:Well, sometimes I do talk to the dog about things that I'm hearing or listen because it helps me remember. But I think I was reading this idea about, you know, you read something and you're getting ready to maybe study for a test or something. So you read an article and then you think, well, in order to really learn it, I should go back and reread it again. But that actually doesn't work either, does it? The rereading process.
Peter C. Brown:That's not a good way to do it. A better way to do it is to read it once and then ask yourself, "What are the big ideas in this article? Can I make a sentence about each of those ideas?" Then go back and reread it.
Susan Lambert:Mm -hmm .
Peter C. Brown:You've challenged your mind and so you go back and read it again after you've tried to do it. And , you say, "Oh, ha," right, exactly. I mean, I do this, I read an article in the morning, in the paper, I want to talk about it over lunch with my friends. I discovered if I don't do what I just described, I get to lunch and I say , "There's a really great article. I can't remember exactly what the points were, but you should read it." Okay. If instead I read the article and I ask myself, "Okay, Peter, you know, why are you impressed by this article? What are the ideas here that you think are important?" And I retrieve them. Then I carry those ideas with me i nto lunch and we have a nice conversation. I just wanted to mention an example with a classroom situation.
Susan Lambert:I'd love that.
Peter C. Brown:So a typical example is a teacher will come in and be with a student and say, "Okay, last week, you know , yesterday or whenever it was the last time we were together, we did these things. Today we're gonna do these other things that are related to that." Here's what's better. You walk into the classroom and you say, "What did we do last time?"
Susan Lambert:Mm -hmm .
Peter C. Brown:"Can you tell me, what did we talk about? And what did we learn from that? Oh, good, okay. Well that's close, but it's a little more like that, and here's how we gonna go forward today." It's a very simple shift asking them to recall and maybe even be able to explain it to someone else in the room.
Susan Lambert:That's a great segue, because you shared with us in the pre-call that there's actually a school in Minneapolis that's been applying some of the concepts from this book into the school. Can you give us some examples of ways that they've sort of extracted the learning to change what they're doing in their education program?
Peter C. Brown:The audiences that have written to us, or we've had meetings and they've been excited, range everywhere from the US Naval Seals, who had us down for two days to work with their trainers, to Harvard University Medical School, all the way down to the grade-level schools and trainers at a nuclear power plant. These ideas are fundamental to human learning at any level. So this school I wanted to mention is a K–12 school in Minneapolis, it's called Breck. It's a private school. I'm sure they have luxuries that most schools don't have. They invited us to come in and talk to students about how learning works, talk to parents about how learning works, and talk to faculty about how learning works. One of the things that I did was I showed a video from the Nova Television show, a neuroscientist called Eric Kendell is dissecting the neurons of sea slugs. They're very large and they're not dissimilar, apparently, from human neurons. And he stimulates these. And under a microscope, you can see when he stimulates it , the neuron, you see it sending out a line from the neuron, which is what they call an axon, which is how it connects to another neuron. It's the physical formation of a brain. The point being to the students is, if it feels hard, there's some reasons. One is you are actually wiring your brain when you learn this stuff. If you learn it well, you get a strong connection. If you don't learn it well, a weak connection or maybe no connection. So at Breck School, they talk to students about how learning works, and they have done just a whole quite remarkable set of things. But one of them is they have these things I like, I'm gonna look at a little list here, of which they call "pocket sentences." If a student is struggling , questions they could ask to keep a student's frustration from shutting that student down, to helping them turn and finding a new way to break through in their learning about something.
Susan Lambert:Hmm.
Peter C. Brown:So , " What do you say to yourself when you're stuck?" "What strategies did you use to figure that out? That's really good you did that. What did you do?" Trying to make them aware of the strategies and the process of figuring something out, creating their own understanding of new material. "What could you do next time for a better outcome? Let's talk about that." "How are you understanding yourself as a learner? Tell me what your process is." "How has your thinking changed?" "What's your evidence that what you're doing works?" Okay, that's a good question. I think! "What are your superpower strategies? Can you build on that? Can you create your scaffold of how you fit the pieces of what you're learning and how you're going about things as a learner?" So they have this coaching process and they dedicate a part of their curriculum to a regular discussion of how learning works and how people are applying it, and how they're sharing that experience. When students transfer in , say in ninth grade from a different school, they have to go to a bootcamp and learn how this stuff works. And then they have these refresher courses along the way. So they are dedicating not just to graduating students who can get into college if they want to or what have you, but students who understand how learning works and internalize it and see themselves as highly effective learners in doing that through an iterative, conversational process. We had a great email from a fifth-grade arithmetic teacher in Mossy Creek, Georgia, and she said, "Well, I read the book and I sat down with my students and it says that we should be practicing stuff we learned earlier. So here's what I suggest. Every Wednesday we'll have a little quiz and it'll be on the stuff that we learned the week before, and we'll call it a sticky quiz, oh a sticky spiral, that's what it was. Anyways.
Susan Lambert:Oh, I love that .
Peter C. Brown:Yeah. Yeah. It was really great! And the students said, okay. And in the measures of the student progress as learners, they went from average to high as tested by the state, just from that simple idea and engaging and bringing the students in.
Susan Lambert:Hmm . That's great strategy, right? Because what you're saying is that, as we think about applying this, I think two things are important. Number one, there's really great evidence that we can then teach our students or maybe even ourselves, of how to be a better learner, right? And how to grow our knowledge base and use these simple strategies that feel hard. And we probably don't wanna always do them, but they actually can be quite effective. But also that it doesn't necessarily take a lot of time. It just may take a reframe of how we approach things. Does that sound right?
Peter C. Brown:Yeah, exactly. I think that's exactly right. And I wanted to mention another example, please. So we heard from an AP economics instructor in Pascagoula, Mississippi , that the national pass rate on the college boards is like 66%. At his course, it was 30%. He read "Make It Stick," and he sat down with the students. He said, "It says here if we do a lot of retrieval practice and self quizzing and that sort of thing, we'll do better." He said the students bought in, so they implemented a thing with little whiteboards. He'd give 'em a question, each student would hold up , write down an answer, then he'd hold 'em all up and he'd go through. And that's correct. That one's wrong. It's upside down . So practice retrieving it, and then they'd had five exams, but he said, "I'm gonna grade the exams, but I'm not gonna record the grades. So you don't need to worry about it, but you need to know what you got right and what you didn't." So he'd give an exam, he'd say , "Now we know what you know and what you don't know. Let's focus on what you don't know." And his students passed the college board rate at 60% doubling from what they had done. And the students said, we can't believe that we're competing on a national level now. It just completely raised their sense of self-efficacy and also the skills that they learned about how to learn.
Susan Lambert:Wow. Empowering people to really believe that they can be learners. That's an amazing story. That's great. I wonder, Peter, if you look back on when you first said yes to this project, if you would've had any idea the impact that this book was going to have
Peter C. Brown:By the time we came to the end of this, I thought this research they've done and reporting it out has the potential to have a huge impact. I hope it does. Now , Harvard University Press, we tried to sell it to a big trade press. Nobody was interested. Harvard came after us. They wanted it because they knew about this research. And they thought they might sell, I don't know, however many copies, not very many. It's a university press. At one point it was doing so well, they thought they might sell 30,000 copies that , you know. As I said, it sold well over a million so far, and it's still going very strong. And it came out in 2014. So I think people really do want to know what the science shows that are things that they can apply in their own personal lives. And by incorporating these stories from people that we found, who've encountered a tough situation and had the ability to respond to that situation, and then asking them , "How did you learn that?" And it's , you know, it's a cop, it's a neurosurgeon, it's a pilot. It's all kinds of different people who've had these experiences in life in which they have drawn knowledge that came the hard way, which is what we're talking about.
Susan Lambert:It is hard for sure. I wonder, did you ever think that it would get in the hands of teachers or educators and that they would be using it too? Or didn't you really think about it?
Peter C. Brown:Well, I mean, it was certainly our hope. And there's a website called retrievalpractice.org. One of Roddy Roediger's colleagues, she's, through that website, built a large audience of teachers around the science of learning and brings in "Make It Stick," but other resources as well. And I'd to see it move a lot faster than it's moving, but I mean, it is moving.
Susan Lambert:Well, one thing we will do is make sure we can link our listeners in the show notes to that website that you mentioned, because if it's got some great information, they will want to see it. We'll also link our listeners to the book so that they can order it if they don't already have it. And Peter, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you again for your work and saying yes to the project because it's very impactful. And thank you so much for joining us in this conversation.
Peter C. Brown:Susan, thank you very much for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity.
Susan Lambert:Thanks so much for listening to my conversation with Peter C. Brown. But remember, before we go, we have one last special segment. Bethany, Dan, and Eric are going to give sneak peeks into the upcoming seasons of Science Connections and Math Teacher Lounge. Let's get right to it. So we would love to hear a little bit about the upcoming seasons on our other Amplify podcasts. So Eric, I would love if you could preview the season of Science Connections.
Eric Cross:I'd love to, Susan, and I'm really excited about season three. There's a great team and we've been thinking about it and talking to educators. And the theme of season three is "Science is the underdog." Exploring the how and why of science is so key. And a little of the background to this, science in so many different districts and places around the country is kind of, at times, it can be pushed to the back burner, giving presence to other content areas that are more often tested. And let's just be honest, we tend to see testing in the English and math, and they're critically important. A lot of times schools and districts are heavily judged and determined by their performance and those scores. And what doesn't often get talked about is how much of an ally science can be to developing those skills. And so in episode one, we're looking forward to talking about why it's the underdog and how it's important to change that. And looking at how science education is done versus other subjects. And then talking about some of the consequences and making the case for science, really just offering a roadmap and making a case for why science education. We should uplift that from kindergarten all the way through middle school and high school. As we continue into the episodes, there are other themes and topics, we'll be talking about integrating science and literacy.
Susan Lambert:Yes!
Eric Cross:Because we are all teachers of literacy. We all are. I know you love that. Right?
Susan Lambert:I love it.
Eric Cross:In my class, I find that my students are so engaged. And many times science teachers have that hook. I mean, we're talking about the world and way things work in your body. And so when students are doing their non-fiction reading or even fiction reading, you already have that hook. And what happens when we supercharge that by working alongside English and math teachers and we start doing interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary things? What are some best practices for that?
Susan Lambert:Hmm . That sounds exciting.
Eric Cross:It is. And I get excited as I talk about it because part of this is kind of my own vision. Like, what could this be like if you had vertical support top down? And so kind of thinking about this as a classroom teacher, like how would this look? And then practical tips for integrating science and literacy in the classroom. It's great to talk about it, but how can I actually take best practices for developing literacy and include that into my teaching as a science teacher? And what you find is it's actually not a lot different. It doesn't really alter your content. It's just good teaching. It's just great practices. And then just, I'll talk about a couple more episodes. How can teachers use science to support math instruction, taking science concepts, taking your curriculum, and then supporting and working alongside math teachers. What does that look like? And we have some phenomenal math teachers right here in this podcast conversation—
Susan Lambert:We do.
Eric Cross:That we'd like to talk to—
Susan Lambert:Yeah .
Bethany Lockhart Johnson:I mean, crossover episode—
Eric Cross:You know, I'm not trying to on-the-spot recruit some great guests, but—
Dan Meyer:Whoa, pressure's on, pressure's on.
Eric Cross:Between Dan and Bethany, there is high level of talent in this podcast. So I'm just putting it out there.
Dan Meyer:We do love the talk.
Susan Lambert:Wow.
Dan Meyer:We love the talk.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson:Yeah. And we love the compliments. So like, I'm in. I'm in!
Susan Lambert:I'm excited. There you go.
Eric Cross:So we got that locked in.
Susan Lambert:We've got that locked in. This is another crossover episode, which sounds exciting. Dan and Bethany, can you beat that? Like, science sounds really amazing, what's happening over there in the Math Teacher Lounge?
Bethany Lockhart Johnson:Here's the beautiful thing. We don't have to beat it. It's not a competition.
Dan Meyer:Not a competition.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson:If anything, this crossover episode is gonna lift. We're trying to lift all of our seasons up because we are so equally excited about them. And let me tell you, we wrapped up our last season, which, okay, Dan Meyer , I don't know anybody who wasn't as excited about last season as Dan Meyer, which was all about joy in mathematics. I said, "Dan Meyer . You talk about joy and math all the time, don't you, Dan?"
Dan Meyer:I do. It's true.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson:So we just scratched the surface on joy in mathematics. But one thing that was clear is that when there is math anxiety, there is a lack of joy, right? So this next season, our fifth season, we're really going to be talking about what is math anxiety? And we really wanna broaden the definition, because so often when we give this narrow definition of what math anxiety is or what it looks like, or who has it, or who really has it, or how it manifests, then we're not having the conversations that can actually help shift conversations at home, conversations in teaching, training programs, conversations. When we're thinking about technology, we're not shifting those broader conversations. And actually, the math anxiety is, it just keeps building and building, right? So at home, a parent's like, "Oh, don't worry. I wasn't a math person, either," you know, but that's about the math anxiety they had.
Susan Lambert:Yeah.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson:Even in my kindergarten class, the parents were coming in anxious about the math that their students were gonna do. And it's like, let's talk about that, right? Because those conversations do really matter when we're developing the way we talk about, not just school, but you know, in this case, math. And then we also wanna talk to researchers in the field that have been thinking about this for a really long time. So folks who have looked at, how do we screen for math anxiety and how does it affect performance, how does it affect testing? And does that, how does that matter? And is it disproportionate? I mean, let me tell you, there are so many things we can talk about about math anxiety, and I think in our math stories that we shared last season, I shared that I did and continue to navigate math anxiety. And I'm so excited for this season to dive in and really look at all these different aspects of it. And you know, it's something that so often folks , I don't know , math becomes the butt of a lot of jokes, don't you think, Dan?
Dan Meyer:I think so. Yeah. Yeah.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson:And we're , why is that?
Dan Meyer:That's where we feel a little special, is that like, science anxiety isn't spoken about as much in my opinion. You know, math occupies a unique and terrifying place in the imagination of the student and the former student. And so we're looking forward to exploring that. Eric dropped a ton of info on future episodes, and I'm under strict embargo from Amplify not to reveal any plot twists or any special guest stars, but there's gonna be some wild stuff happening , plot-wise, this season. We got guests coming back from previous seasons. Couple guests will wind up being like, siblings, you didn't know about 'em . So it's just gonna be a wild story on Math Teacher Lounge. You better tune in.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson:And I'm not saying we won't have a crossover episode again with you guys, like on Math Teacher Lounge . I'm just saying we're not gonna reveal it now.
Susan Lambert:Oh -ho, the secrets!
Dan Meyer:You'll be surprised . We'll just bust in on this podcast here.
Susan Lambert:Love that. And first of all, you know, what a great connection to what it means to learn and joy in the classroom is a much better context for learning than anxiety. So we are really looking forward to these episodes. Hey y'all, I am so excited that we can bring an Amplify suite of podcasts to the listeners out there, across the world, because all of the topics we're bringing to them are certainly relevant in more than one classroom. So thanks for the work that you do, and thanks for joining me here. And we are gonna link our listeners in the show notes to all of these podcasts. And I look forward to listening more.
Dan Meyer:Thanks, Susan.
Eric Cross:Thanks Susan.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson:Thank you for inviting us into your space. It's been great.
Susan Lambert:Thanks so much for listening to this crossover episode extravaganza. Now, please do yourself a favor and subscribe to Science Connections as well as Math Teacher Lounge. And while you're at it, why not tell a math or science inclined friend or colleague all about them? New seasons of both shows will launch within the next two weeks. Next time on Science of Reading: The Podcast, we are officially kicking off season seven, all season long we'll be exploring the theme "Tackling the Hard Stuff." We know that dramatically improving literacy rates isn't an easy task. That's why we're going to devote this upcoming season to helping you take on some of the biggest challenges when it comes to teaching reading.
Claude Goldenberg:I wish there were a simple solution, but I don't really think there is. You know, we should talk about some of the things that can be done, but I think we need to have academics, researchers, and advocates for sure, being better informed and more accurate and less one-sided in what they say and what they advocate for.
Susan Lambert:We'll kick off season seven, "Tackling the Hard Stuff," next time on Science of Reading: The Podcast. Thank you so much for listening.