Chunking And Illusions Of Competence

  This topic stems from my curiosity in understanding how learning works so as to be able to improve learning outcomes. All what I’ll be saying will be based on either findings in neuroscience and psychology or results of research studies carried out. Many of us here would have been familiar with these methods but may not understand how they work.

CHUNKING

First we’ll begin with the story of a certain Solomon Shereshevsky who caught the attention of his boss because he was lazy. Or so he seemed to his boss.

Solomon was a journalist in the Soviet Union, in the mid-1920s. That meant reporting what you were told, no more, no less. The daily assignments included details about seeing a particular person at a given location and obtaining an exact information. The Editor in charge began to notice that everyone took notes except Solomon who felt there was no need since he could remember whatever he heard, word for word. He even thought everyone had a memory like his, perfect and indelible. Everyone here must like to have that kind of memory or so he thought.

But maybe you wouldn’t want this extraordinary memory if you knew that hand-in-hand it came with a problem involved which will make us appreciate how focus links to both understanding and memory.

Focusing our attention often helps to solve problems, but it can also create problems by blocking our ability to see new solutions, a term called Einstellung.

Turning our attention to something allows our attentional octopus to stretch its neural tentacles to connect different brain parts. The more the senses we can connect our attention to, the wider the tentacles can stretch across structures such as the thalamus, occipital lobe up to the surface of the cortex. It could be a spatial sense of shape, color or taste.

For example a child learning French that grows in a French speaking household. The mother says ‘mere’, smiling and he parrots it back.

While this means that focusing our attention to connect parts of the brain is an important part of the focused mode of learning, the other mode which is the diffused mode, the implication is that when we are stressed this octopus begins to lose its ability to make connections. This is why our brain doesn’t seem to work properly when we are stressed, angry or afraid.

So what is a Chunk? Solomon’s problem

As much as Solomon’s memory was extraordinary it interfered with his ability to create chunks. His imagery of the individual trees was so vivid that he couldn’t picture the forest.

Chunks are pieces of information bound together through meaning. Example taking the letters t, a and p, if we were asked to remember them.

Let’s look at the example of the German researcher Alfred Wegener who in the early 1900s put together his theory of continental drift from analyzing maps, study and exploration. He realised that they fit like puzzle pieces.

If Solomon had read this story about the discovery of the continental drift he wouldn’t have got the point even though he would have been able to repeat every word in the story. His inability to link his individual memory traces together would prevent him from grasping the concept.

Basic Steps To Forming A Chunk

The first step in chunking, then, is to simply focus your attention on the information you want to chunk

The second step in chunking is to understand the basic idea you are trying to chunk

The third step to chunking is gaining context so you see not just how, but also when to use this chunk. Remember the t + a + p thing

There’s a bottom-up chunking process and top-down “big picture” process.

ILLUSIONS OF COMPETENCE

What comes to your mind with this phrase? A bad doctor that thinks himself the best? A poor lecturer that thinks his student understand all he is explaining? The term illusions of competence is usually used in relation to learning.

Illusions of competence describes a mental situation where you think you've mastered a set of material but you really haven’t.

The most common scenario is usually in an examination. One doesn’t have enough mastery of the subject at hand to answer the question or profer a solution to the task at hand.

To verify you actually know the material, not falsely believe you know it, you must repeatedly self-test your knowledge of the different sections, topics, definitions, formulas, etc. as you study.

To self-test means attempting to recall the information, from memory only, without looking at the paper or screen.

Here are some of the most common ways students fall into the illusion of competence trap:

1)      Words in a Book

2)      Solution Is Shown

3)      Browser is Open on Google, Wikipedia, etc

4)      So Much Time Studying

Ways to avoid Illusions of Competence.

By:

1)      Attempting to recall the material you are trying to learn – retrieval practice – retrieval practice is more effective than simply rereading the material (Psychologist Jeffrey Karpicke and colleagues)

2)      Alan Baddeley (a renowned psychologist and expert on memory) – “Intention to learn is helpful only if it leads to the use of good learning strategies.”

3)      Using recall-mental retrieval of the key ideas – rather than passive rereading will make your study time more focused and effective.

 Basically, the solution is to continuous self testing usually by recall as one studies.

All these are important in making our knowledge second nature.

“Getting a concept in class versus being able to apply it to a genuine physical problem is the difference between a simple student and a full-blown scientist or engineer. The only way I know of to make that jump is to work with the concept until it becomes second nature, so you can begin to use it like a tool.”

—Thomas Day, Professor of Audio Engineering, McNally Smith College

References

1)      A Mind for Maths and Science – Barbara Oakley

2)      Memory Improvement Tips website

3)      Learninghow to learn – Oakley Sejnowski

 Muhammad Oluwatimilehin Saka