QUIZ

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.

Context

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 your attention to something completely different, or even better, go for a walk or take a shower--anything that allows your mind to relax and dart randomly around.

Select which of the following statements are true about chunking:

- "Chunking" involves compressing information more compactly--this is part of why it is easier to draw a "chunked" idea or concept into mind. - When you are trying to figure something out, if you have a good library of chunks, you can more easily skip to the right solution by—metaphorically speaking—"listening" to whispers from your diffuse mode. Your diffuse mode can help you connect two or more chunks together in new ways to solve novel problems. - As you gain more experience in chunking in any particular subject, you will see that the chunks you are able to create are bigger—in some sense, the ribbons are longer. - Concepts and problem-solving methods you might learn for physics can be very similar to chunked concepts in business.

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.

- Dopamine signals in relation to unexpected reward - Acetylcholine affects focused learning and attention - Serotonin affects social life and risk-taking behavior

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

- Focused attention. - Practice to help you gain mastery and a sense of the big-picture context. - Understanding of the basic idea.

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?

- Focusing your "octopus of attention" to connect parts of the brain to tie together ideas is an important part of the focused mode of learning. It is also often what helps get you started in creating a chunk. - When you are stressed, your "attentional octopus" begins to lose the ability to make connections. This is why your brain doesn't seem to work right when you're angry, stressed, or afraid. - 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.

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

- Improvising a new sentence in a new language you are learning involves the ability to creatively mix together various complex minichunks and chunks (sounds and words) that you have mastered in the new language. - One of the first steps toward gaining expertise in academic topics is to create conceptual chunks—mental leaps that unite scattered bits of information through meaning. - 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.

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

- 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. - 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. - 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. - 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.

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 yourself to evaluate how well are you doing in your study process. - Recall the main ideas of a text.

Select good approaches that can assist you in forming a mental "chunk."

- Understand the basic idea or concept you are trying to chunk. - Focus on the information you want to chunk. - Gain context for how and when to use this chunk by practicing.

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.

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?

- highlighting more than one or so sentence in a paragraph - rereading the text - concept mapping

"___________" 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

[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

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

- One of the first steps toward gaining expertise in academic topics is to create conceptual chunks—mental leaps that unite scattered bits of information through meaning. - 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. - Improvising a new sentence in a new language you are learning involves the ability to creatively mix together various complex minichunks and chunks (sounds and words) that you have mastered in the new language.

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

- Sometimes you have to unlearn your erroneous older ideas or approaches even while you're learning new ones. - 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. - Mastering a new subject means learning not only the basic chunks, but also learning how to select and use different chunks.

[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

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.

Take a little break. You can focus on something different, or even just relax and not focus on anything at all, perhaps going out for a walk.