Ineffective practice is usually just repetition, expecting improvement without focusing on correcting problems
Purposeful Practice - has well-defined, specific goals - Is focused (giving practice your full attention) - Involves feedback (success or failure) - Requires getting out of one’s comfort zone (is not easy, pushing barriers)
Harnessing Adaptability - Practice and training can actually change the brain - London taxi drivers that master the standard training develop larger hippocampus - Regular training leads to changes in the parts of the brain that are challenged by the training - Younger brains are more adaptable than adult brains, training can have larger effects - Development in one area may come at the price of regression in another - Trained abilities fade after lack of use
Mental Representations - Blindfold chess illustrates the importance of pattern memory - Experienced chess players can remember chess positions from a real game, but are not skilled at remembering random arrangements of pieces - they remember patterns, familiar arrangements of several pieces - Short-term memory can be extended by referring to familiar patterns or chunks - Much of deliberate practice involves developing ever more efficient mental representations for the activity under practice - Familiar patterns are internalized so that they can be automatically recognized and fluidly give rise to the appropriate actions - Knowledge of a domain has to be organized and accessible in a way that can be used in expert performance - Planning separates novice performance from expert performance - Experts tend to have detailed planning processes that can be refined - Experts have higher quality mental representations that help guide them in performance, and can help provide them with feedback to adjust their practice - Physical activities are mental too