Learning How to Learn Week 2 Chunking

Source: My personal notes from Learning How to Learn Coursera course

Chunks are compact packages of information that your mind can easily access. We’ll talk about how you can form chunks, how you can use them to improve your understanding and creativity with the material, and how chunks can help you to do better on tests. We’ll also explore illusions of competence in learning, the challenges of overlearning, and the advantages of interleaving.

What is a Chunk?

Like a piece of a puzzle

• A piece of information needs context for you to learn it
• Like an “octopus” using 4 slots to tie together ideas in focused mode of learning - used for chunking.
• The octopus needs energy and calm to work. Stress and fatigue hurts connections development. A chunk example: P O P = soda
• Chunk = network of neurons used to firing together, connections between things

octopus finding nodes

Language learning chunking:

• Focused mode: repetition and ordered learning
• Diffuse: talking with native speakers, creative writing

How to Form a Chunk

Examples:

• Learn a song - listen, watch, learn patterns of passages
• Sport - pieces of skills to put together
• Roadmap - journey of connections is important, rather than individual directions

Best chunks are recalled complex connections

Making chunks - can be mental & physical

1. Focused mode (no distractions)

focuses mode pinball

2. Understand the target of learning (use focused and diffuse modes to figure out “main idea”)

Octopus forming connections

3. Get context, practice using it

see chunks in context

• Learn when to use the chunk, like a tool, and when not to
• Context = when to use a technique
• 2 processes - top down, bottom up learning - context is in the middle

How to get big picture?

• Listen to a lecture
• Scan learning materials (e.g. headings, pictures)

scanning materials, building chunks, see context

Illusions of Competence, Recall, Mini-testing, Value of making Mistakes

• Reading, Re-reading is not as effective or mapping concepts. Rather, learn something and try to recall is more effective.
• “By simply practicing and recalling, students learned far more and at a deeper level”. Practice of retrieval, helps build chunks
• “Retrieval practice produces more learning than elaborative studying with Concept Mapping” - Jeffrey D. Karpicke and Janell R. Blunt
• Once info is chunked, it takes less of 4 working memory slots in use

Illusions of competence

• Highlighting - Aim to mark main ideas, minimal highlights - 1 sentence or less per paragraph. Make notes in margins to synthesize concepts
• Glancing at solutions without recall is not yours

Testing & mistakes

• Recall combats illusions and making mistakes helps learning
• Recalling in different environments (e.g. home, library, classroom), removes any cues you pick up in your learning environment and improves recall.

Motivation - easier to learn something you are interested in

brain pathways

• Neurons carry information about your environment and actions.

• Neuromodulators carry info on the importance of information to you and affects how other neurons affect each other. Each neuromodulator affects or signals particular behaviour

• Acetylcholine - focus and attention, help with long term memory

• Dopamine

  • Helps with reward learning or long term rewards
  • Release when we receive an unexpected reward
  • Drugs imitate it, but actually do the opposite like motivating harmful actions and later craving
  • Loss dopamine neurons, leads to:
    • Anhedonia - inability to have pleasure
    • Severe loss - Parkinson’s disease - rigidity, slowness, catatonia, lack of movement

• Serotonin

  • Important for social relationships
  • Low serotonin leads to higher risk taking activity

The Value of a Library of Chunks

• Innovation:
  • Combine chunks in new ways - concepts and solutions
    • Collection of chunks = library of neuro patterns. Large collections allows you to more easily combine chunks, using diffuse thinking
    • Patterns can simplify problem solving
    • Different types of concepts
  • Realize connections in chunks in and across fields - across is called transfer
    • Example: Problem solving in physics can be used for business
• Gradually build chunks in mind

library of chunks and chunk as a ribbon going into working memory

• Examples:
  • Games: players can access 1000s of chunks (plays) in their minds
  • Science: thoughts, facts, approaches
• Application of chunks and solutions:
  • Sequential: step by step
  • Holistic (global): intuition and diffuse thinking
• Law of Serendipity: “Lady Luck favours the one who tries”
  • Practice makes it easier, even when there are many concepts and chunks to take it
  • Repeated effort will make things easier

Law of Serendipity, lady luck favours the one who tries

Overlearning, Choking, Einstellung, Chunking, and Interleaving

• Overlearning = When learning something, sometimes we learn/practice it over and over again
  • Practice and repetition improves idea and connections
    • Should focus on difficult topics - deliberate practice
  • Overlearning is not useful if repeating something you already know well or is easy which creates an illusion of competence
• Einstellung - German for “mindset”
  • Can be like a road block
  • When you have a solution to a problem or intuition, you may not see other solutions as you keep using the same pattern
  • Overlearning can lead to Einstellung
• Interleaving - practice using different patterns / approaches to different problems is best way to learn and prevent a fixed mindset
  • It can be hard
  • Practice selecting different chunks, mix up learning
  • Builds flexibility and creativity and allows independent thinking

Chunks in the mind and Einstellung "roadmap" prefers a certain pattern, which a thought may try to jump to first

Application:

• Allows cross-discipline application of knowledge
  • Though weaknesses of generalization apply
  • Specialization offers depth, but can cause Einstellung
• Thomas S Kuhn in “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” discovered that most paradigm shifts in sciences were discovered by younger people or people originally trained in another field.
  • These people are less easily trapped by Einstellung
  • People used to old ways gradually leave the field, allowing changes

Summary of Module 2

• “Chunk” our week on “chunking”
• Chunk are network of neurons - easy to access items and apply, can be slotted into working memory

Chunks as a ribbon going into the working memory

• Chunking relies on:
  • Focused attention
  • Understanding
  • Practice
  • Recall
    • Recall chunks and apply them, like neural hooks
    • Recall in different places to help application
    • Test
      • Check if you are learning the material
    • Mistakes are good
  • Transfer
    • Chunks in one area can help learning a similar chunk in another area
  • Interleave
    • Practice applying different approaches, problems
  • Law of Serendipity - “Lady Luck favours the one who tries”
    • Practice makes it easier

Interview with Dr. Norman Fortenberry - Learning at MIT, Supported with People

• Mechanical engineering professor who wanted to learn how to teach after his acaedmic education

What skills did you use to learn?

• Know high school is different in university learning
• Use group learning, school resources, be part of a team to learn

How did you not feel intimidated at school?

• Get support from others and give support

How did you face failure?

• Balance your ego with what makes sense for you
• Spend more time of hard subjects

How do you promote diffuse mode?

• Take a break and do hobbies. Otherwise, you lose ability to work.
• Do things not requiring brain power

Advice for learning?

• Multi-mode input: use many modes of input, muscle memory, see, say, audio
  • Teach it or learn with peers

Interview with Scott Young, a “Marco Polo” of Learning

• Scott compressed 4 years of MIT Computer Science into 1 yer and travel learning with 4 different languages immersion in the country
• https://www.scotthyoung.com

How do you avoid illusions of competence?

• Solve problems, for example:
  • In language, use it
  • In math/computer science, solve problem sets and check answer for problems
• Test yourself

What is self exploration?

• Pretend you are teaching the problem you are investigating
• Look for problem areas in your understanding and find help

Tell us about vivid examples

• The mind doesn’t deal well with abstract examples
• Create examples, comparisons of things your mind knows, example:
  • Electricity and voltage: like water in pipes with higher pipes flowing faster like high voltage
    • It is concrete example and helps understand the comparison, it can take time to build

How do you develop motivation for learning? Especially difficult things?

• You get better with practice, small steps
• You will be motivated as you get better

Self-education Projects

• Always have a mission to motivate learning
  • Specific projects with a goal and time constraint

Using online resources

• Using online education platforms like Coursera, eDX
  • MIT Open Courseware: go through problem sets and exams, textbook; some may not have videos or much support but working through course will facilitate learning
• Harder to learn advanced topics due to written to beginners

Learn more by studying less?

• People may use low intensity learning, but it is not effective. Like exercising with low intensity that your body need for improvement.
• What to do? choose chunks of times studying, high focus and efficiency