Jennings 1

Amelia Jennings

Professor Van Spronsen

EDU 101

12 March 2015

Article Evaluation # 2

In The Science of Successful Learning1 Henry Roediger III, coauthor of Make It Stick:

The Science of Successful Learning, compares the immediate and long-term results of teaching

techniques. He makes the case that teachers should present students with problem sets and

regular activities that challenge them. While blocked practice may be quicker and make it seem

that the student learns more easily, he shows how mixed practice requires effort that will help

them learn better and actually do better on exams. Similarly, he advocates the more difficult

method of reading retrieval over re-reading material. He challenges the idea of the test as merely

a comprehension gauge and suggests teachers use it as a way of practicing reading retrieval and

embracing difficulty as a way of learning.

The running thread of philosophy in this article is a pragmatic concept that students learn

by encountering difficulty. Although initially it seems to reject a pragmatic approach to learning

by downplaying learning that seeks immediate results, it engages with Deweys idea about

learning by dealing with problems, saying that this produces better performance long term (42,

43). Pragmatic philosophy teaches that what works is of value, and at first glance the rejection of

quick learning could seem to reject pragmatic values too. However, what works temporarily is

not the only concern of the pragmatic education; it may be concerned with what works in the

long run as well. In fact, the pragmatic approach would go even so far as to say that, since there
1 The Science of Successful Learning, by Henry L. Roediger III, was published in the

October 2014 issue of Educational Leadership (pages 42-46).

 Jennings 2

is not absolute standard of what is good, there are a variety of means to the end of accomplishing

what works, but any approach that works is right. In light of that, this article appears to claim

that the typical desire for immediate success is not the only valuable success, but that long term

learning is the real proof of whether education works.

This same philosophical idea of what is valuable in a teaching method is evinced in the

claim that the active retrieving method is better long term. If the students have to engage with the

material in a short term test they will remember better later as well because the initial test or quiz

was a problem that they encountered (44). He emphasizes that it is important for students to learn

how to use and retrieve material, not just store information. This also indicates a pragmatic

thinking because it assumes that there is more value in being able to use information than to

simply have information in the brain.

This approach may also advocate for the essentialist or perennialist idea that school

should take effort, and that this produces lasting results. Roediger refers to this as something

psychologists call desirable difficulties, but essentialism and perennialism would consider this a

valuable aspect of education by definition. While this approach is harder work, Roediger claims

it is important (45). He also points out that students like teachers who they feel are more difficult,

even students recognize the value of hard work in learning (46). This also reflects an essentialist

or perenialist view, showing that students operate under the assumption that their education

should entail hard work, so that, if their teachers push them to do hard work, they value those

teachers.

While this article points to a small selection of different modern and postmodern

philosophical ideas, the primary philosophical underpinning is Deweys pragmatic approach and

teachings on education.