Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects: Chunking

Question 7 Select the following true statements regarding the concept of "understanding."

Understanding is like a superglue that helps hold the underlying memory traces together. Can you create a chunk if you don't understand? Yes, but it's often a useless chunk that won't fit in with or relate to other material you are learning.

Select which of the following statements are true about chunking:

When we retrieve knowledge, we're not being mindless robots—the retrieval process itself enhances deep learning and helps us begin forming chunks. Chunking helps your brain run more efficiently. Once you chunk an idea, concept, or action, you don't need to remember all the little underlying details; you've got the main idea—the chunk—and that's enough. The best chunks are ones that are so well-ingrained that you don't have to consciously think about connecting the neural pattern together. That, actually, is the point of making complex ideas, movements or reactions into a single chunk.

Fill the blank in the following statement by choosing the right term from the options given below -------- is where bottom up and top down learning meet.

(Dendrite) (Memory)

Select the following true statements about learning, as discussed on this module's videos.

-One significant mistake students sometimes make in learning is jumping into the water before they learn to swim. In other words, they blindly start working on homework without reading the textbook, attending lectures, viewing online lessons, or speaking with someone knowledgeable. It's like randomly allowing a thought to pop off in the focused-mode pinball machine without paying any real attention to where the solution truly lies. -Although practice and repetition are important in helping build solid neural patterns to draw on, it's interleaving that starts building flexibility and creativity. It's where you leave the world of practice and repetition and begin thinking more independently. -Interleaving your studies—making a point to review for a test, for example, by skipping around through problems in the different chapters and materials—can sometimes seem to make your learning more difficult. But in reality, it helps you learn more deeply. -Once you've got the basic idea down during a session, continuing to hammer away at it during the same session doesn't strengthen the kinds of long-term memory connections you want to have strengthened. Worse yet, focusing on one technique is a little like learning carpentry by only practicing with a hammer. After a while, you think you can fix anything by just bashing it.

Select which of the following statements are true about chunking:

Chunks can help you understand new concepts. This is because when you grasp one chunk, you will find that that chunk can be related in surprising ways to similar chunks not only in that field, but also in very different fields. The bigger and more well-practiced your chunked mental library—whatever the subject you are learning—the more easily you will be able to solve problems and figure out solutions. -Basically, what people do to enhance their knowledge and gain expertise is to gradually build the number of chunks in their mind—valuable bits of information that they can piece together in new and creative ways. -The ability to combine chunks in new and original ways underlies a lot of historical innovation. -Chunking isn't all you need to develop creative flexibility in your learning—but it's an important component.

Question 6 [Select the word that belongs in the blank space.] "_______ practice" is when you apply special extra attention in practicing the material that you find to be the most difficult. This is the type of practice that experts use to speed up their knowledge gain.

Deliberate

The videos used the analogy of an octopus to help you understand how the focused mode reaches through the slots of working memory to make connections in various parts of the brain. Which of the following observations related to the "octopus of attention" analogy are true?

When you are focusing your attention on something, it's almost as if you have an octopus—the "octopus of attention"—that slips its tentacles through those four slots of working memory when necessary, to help you make connections to information you might have in various parts of your brain. The intentional, focused mode connections of the "octopus of attention" analogy are quite different from the random connections of the diffuse mode.

Question 3 Which of the following statements are true about chunks and/or chunking?

chunking helps your brains run more efficienty. the best chunk are ones so weel-ingrained. when we retrieve knowledge

In Dr. Sejnowski's video, the neuromodulators acetylcholine, dopamine, and serotonin were mentioned as affecting specific areas. Select the three true statements below, based on Dr. Sejnowski's video, about which areas these neurotransmitters affect.

depamine signals in relation to unexpected. serotonin affects sociol life. acetylcholine affevts focused leraring.

Question 10 "___________" is when your initial thought, an idea you already have in mind, or a neural pattern you've already developed and strengthened, prevents a better idea or solution from being found, or keeps you from being flexible enough to accept new, better, or more appropriate solutions.

einstellung

Which statement best describes "deliberate practice"?

generation -

Question 1 As discussed on this module's videos, which THREE of the following six options have been shown by research to be generally NOT as effective a method for studying--that is, which three methods are more likely to produce illusions of competence in learning?

rereading hig mapping

It's quite common to get stuck on a problem--often because you have initial ideas about what the solution should be that block your ability to see the real solution. What is a next best step to take when you've already spent time reanalyzing the problem by focusing intently, and you find that you are simply stuck?

switch

In order to learn more efficiently and effectively, you want to avoid illusions of competence (that is, cheating yourself into thinking that you have already learned some material when you haven't). Bearing this in mind, which TWO of the following study methods are the best to prevent you from falling into illusions of competence

test recall

Question 2 [Select the word that belongs in the blank space.] "_________" is the idea that a chunk you've mastered in one area can often help you much more easily learn chunks of information in different areas that can share surprising commonalities.

transfer

Three steps were mentioned as being vitally important in making a chunk. Pick those three things out from the list below.

uderstendinf the bacis. focused attention. practice to help

The videos used the analogy of an octopus to help you understand how the focused mode reaches through the slots of working memory to make connections in various parts of the brain. Which of the following observations related to the "octopus of attention" analogy are true?

when you focusing your attention on somthing. the intentional, focused mode connection.