Chunking involves grouping information and actions into manageable units to improve our memory. They are a vital part of learning.
Despite the weird name, we use chunks constantly.
Do you actively think about each action when you get dressed in the morning? Like how you put on a shirt? How do your hands move? What form do you need when putting on pants? What is each finger doing during the process?
You probably don’t have to think about the intricacies of getting dressed because you treat it as one thought.
What about backing your car out of the driveway? Perhaps when you were first learning how to drive your brain was working overtime to watch all your surroundings, check how much pressure you were putting on the gas, and ensure you didn’t run over the neighbor's cat. Now you can do it regularly with much less stress in a seamless motion.
These are examples of chunks that we use in our daily life. But chunks aren’t just for actions, they are used for abstract problem-solving in areas such as math, art, and science.
So how can we use this concept to learn something?
The Process of Creating a Chunk
When forming a chunk we often rely on familiar patterns or pre-existing chunks of information. There are three main aspects to creating a chunk.
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