Organize Information in Small Chunks

100 Days of Build and Talk: Day 2

As a professor and homeschooling parent, I have spent countless hours teaching others. While I learned how to design lessons and implement learning experiences through my professional experiences, my journey as a homeschooling parent brought a different set of experiences.

One of the important lessons I learned was to organize information in small chunks. Fortunately, I stumbled on to Thinkblocks when Ananth was in elementary school. Thinblocks came in three sizes. I started writing one idea on each block. We would write one idea on each medium size block and put in a larger block to create larger chunks of knowledge. When we started using Waldorf and Enki, we started combining scarves from Waldorf and Thinkblocks to narrate stories.

Our next accidental discovery was Wholemovement. Another parent suggested this work on folding circles. I bought a book with the idea of exploring this activity for a month or two. Ananth loved folding. He also showed an interest in coloring. Rather than fold many paper plates or circles each day, he showed a clear preference for folding only one circle and coloring it. Since he persisted in folding, we started exploring arrangement of chunks on circles.

Over the years, we have explored many technology tools. For example, Thortspace, Plectica, and kumu are visual mapping tools that enable us to organize information in small movable chunks. Thus, our experiments with small chunks have continued as Ananth has become older. The reasons for using them and the process for using small chunks have also evolved. For example, our focus now is on organizing in small chunks to facilitate memorization. We use chunks to organize learning, build explanations, facilitate memorization, and organize communications.

Organizing information in small chunks sounds simple. But it is a lifelong process of discovery!

• How should we divide lessons and other information into small chunks?
• How can we divide into chunks in a systematic and consistent manner?
• What tools can we use to create chunks?

These are some questions that we continue to ask as we work on organizing information in small chunks.

Read the article on using Thinblocks to create small chunks here.

Read about visual schedules using PECS here.