Learning how to learn — Chunking Essentials

These notes are written after viewing the Learning how to learn videos on Coursera. https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn/

What are Chunks?

Chunks are pieces of information that your brain create which are bounded by meaning or use.

Chunking Process

It is important to know that, rather than focusing on an individual step in solving a problem, the understanding of connection between steps are more beneficial in forming chunks.

It is split in two processes, which are top-down and bottom-up. The top-down process focuses on giving you a “big picture” on the learning and understanding the context of it. It will aid in situations to know when to apply a particular problem solving technique. The bottom-up process focuses on practicing and repetition, where one will build and strengthen each chunk. These chunks will then be easily accessible in the future. Both processes are vital in gaining mastery over a material. One tip is to browse through a chapter before reading in details. Look at the pictures, headings and short phrases at the side to get a “big picture” of what the chapter will be covering.

Illusions of Competence

Some great strategies to learn a material include recalling, mini-testing and making mistakes. Rereading a book or notes is actually less productive than recalling. After one has finish reading and understanding a material, simply look away and try to recall what you have just read. Practising and recalling what one has just read allow one to learn far more and deeper than just reading and drawing concept maps. If one is trying to build connections between chunks before the basic chunks are embedded in the brain, this will not work well. It is like learning advance strategy of chess before one even understand how to the chess pieces move. Using recall, one can mentally retrieve the key ideas than passive rereading. The only time when rereading works is when one reread after some time has passed. This allow one to build space repetition. Highlighting and underlining must be done carefully. It is of no use to highlight multiple lines at one go which can fool your brain in understanding the material. A better alternative is to highlight one sentence per paragraph and/or write notes of the side of the margin to emphasise key ideas. Rereading notes can create illusions of competence and fool the brain into understanding the material. Spending a lot of time with the material does not guarantee that one will learn it. A helpful way to overcome these illusions is to test oneself about what one is learning. If one make mistakes, they can help one to prevent them again and to improve learning. Another tip is to try to recall what one have learned in different environment. This is especially helpful during the exams when one will not be depending on a environment to recall what they have learned.