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Abbey Schwab

Miss Munger

ENGL 299

19 Sep 2021

Make It Stick Chapter 5 Reading Response – Question #3

  According to our book Make It Stick, the curse of knowledge is having mastered certain

concepts and skills, miscalculating how long it will take someone to learn them for the first time

(Brown 115). Teachers are the most prone to fall into this illusion. They structure their classes at

higher comprehension levels than what new students can reach. While these concepts are not

new to the teacher, they are to the students. As a student, I have experienced this in my classes.

Freshmen year, my video production teacher explained cameras in terms of his mastery of the

concept. In contrast, we had no clue how to even turn on the camera, let alone produce cinematic

masterpieces. Our teacher was having difficulty going back to teach us the primary step-by-step

process. 

The more an individual knows about a skill or concept, the more challenging it is to teach

someone about it. Teaching a mastered concept is more challenging because the instructor has

created mental models, combining small steps to solve problems (Brown 119). The master solves

the problem as a consolidated whole rather than stopping at each step; these mental models

almost become a reflex, where the steps do not require much thought. Therefore, it is harder to

explain each essential step to a new student who has no prior knowledge of the specific skill or

concept (Brown 118). The teacher commits a metacognition error when they assume the students

will follow the complex mental model consolidated in their brain; the misinterpretation that what

they know, the students also know (Brown 119). 

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Abbey Schwab

Miss Munger

ENGL 299

19 Sep 2021

Make It Stick Chapter 6 Reading Response – Question #5

           According to our book Make It Stick, dynamic testing is valuable because it shows

students what areas they need to improve. Instead of drawing attention to accomplishments, it

redirects the focus to weaknesses (Brown 151). Sternberg came up with this idea of dynamic

testing not to discourage students but rather to show them their weaknesses are not fixed but

need more attention. Other than improvement, the second advantage of dynamic testing is

showing the student’s potential from one test to the next. This kind of testing does not measure

students' knowledge in one specific moment; it measures potential by giving multiple tests to

check progress and improvement. Aptitude tests and learning styles tell students to focus on their

strengths, but dynamic testing produces expertise that requires them to dig deeper for the

answers and problem solve. If students only focus on their strengths, they will never be pushed to

ask questions, gauge their abilities accurately, and develop durable learning (Brown 152). 

The first step in dynamic testing is the initial test that shows where students are weak and

asks the question, “Where do I need to improve?”. The second step is using the effective study

strategies that Make It Stick suggests, such as reflection, interleaving, and spaced practice, all of

which produce durable learning. The final step is testing again to see what strategies worked and

what areas still need improvement (Brown 152). My intercultural communication class engaged

in dynamic testing through short answer questions to test our initial knowledge of the concepts. I

could gauge which topics I did not understand and spend extra time studying those to achieve my
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potential. We were tested on the same topics later when we wrote essays, and I was able to see

which areas I still needed to work on and what studying strategies worked well in my learning.

Dynamic testing allows us to commit errors and learn from them. Working hard at improving our

areas of weakness produces much more durable learning than tailoring to our desired learning

styles (Brown 159). 

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Works Cited

Brown, Peter C., Henry L. Roediger III, and Mark A. McDaniel. Make It Stick: The Science of

Successful Learning. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge,

Massachusetts, 2014.