Explanation
What people know (their knowledge base) is inscribed
in long-term memory. Most information, particularly
when related to academic content and highly skilled
activities (e.g., sports; artistic endeavors such as playing
a musical instrument), must be processed in
some way before being stored in long-term memory.
At any given moment, students experience an enormous
amount of stimuli in the environment, but only
a small portion is further processed in the form of
attention and encoding, ultimately moving into
a time-constrained and limited-capacity memorystorage
area known as short-term or working memory.
To be retained more permanently, information
must be transferred into long-term memory, which by
definition is of relatively long duration (e.g., decades),
has very large capacity, and is highly organized (e.g.,
categorized). The transfer of information from shortterm
to long-term memory is accomplished through
different strategies, and practice is key to this transfer
process.5
Studies comparing the performance of experts and
novices have uncovered important distinctions between
deliberate practice and other activities, such as
play or “drill and kill” repetition. Rote repetition—simply
repeating a task—will not by itself improve performance
or long-term retention of content. Instead,
deliberate practice involves attention, rehearsal,
and repetition over time and leads to new
knowledge or skills that can later be developed
into more complex knowledge and skills. Although
other factors such as intelligence and motivation
also affect performance, practice and rehearsal
are necessary,