Make It Stick strategies to succeed in a college course

Review of the Literature
The author of Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning, Peter C. Brown is a freelance writer and online journal writer. His book explains many strategies and practices for the achievement of enhanced learning. I had used four of the “Make it Stick" strategies during the semester. The first one I had used was the Retrieval Practice. This is a practice strategy that aims to make the person retrieve new information by memory through things like flashcards and quizzes. This strategy works because of how effective it is during the process of trying to learn new information, as it really forces the mind to remember the information through repetition. The second strategy I used was the Spaced Practice. This strategy allows the student to process the information they've learned through spacing out the time studying. This strategy works because it allows your brain to have a break between study sessions, which increases retention. The third strategy I used was the Generation Strategy. This strategy is used when attempting to answer a question without being shown the answer before, similar to methods used for flashcards. This strategy helps students learn by not allowing them to know the result before trying to make an effort at answering the question. It works because it forces students using it to actually think about the material and retain the information learned. The last strategy that I had used was the Reflection Strategy. This is a strategy where once you’ve studied the material or taken a quiz, you immediately question what you've just learned and think about what has been observed. This strategy helps stronger learning, retrieving from memory, and if you fall short on your goal, it helps visualize what you might do differently next time.


Method
Participants
During the semester only the teaching assistant had helped me through the class. Tracy Morrsion was the teaching assistant that was assigned to me, and she was very kind and helpful. She is a Statistics graduate student and she helped me with any questions I had over homework, quizzes, or grade disputes.


Materials
The materials that I used to succeed in this course are as follows: quizlet flashcards, quizlet learn, flashcards, course textbook, notebooks, pencils, and teaching assistants. Not all of the resources were used every week but they all had an integral part in helping me with the course.
Procedure
During a typical week during the semester, I usually studied the materials for the course three or four days a week. I would usually study my quizlet two days a week for an average of an hour and a half a day, which is where I would use the retrieval and generation strategies. Using retrieval on the new material that I had learned and put into the quizlet from the textbook, and using generation when I was studying the quizlet. The other days I would be reading my textbook, working on assignments or quizzes, and reviewing the past assignments. During this time I would use the strategies spaced and reflection. I would use spaced practice when I was taking time in between reading and taking notes from the textbook, and I used reflection after I finished assignments or readings in the textbook. I used reflection after every quiz came back, in order to learn from my mistakes.
Results