Chunk It Up!
In the fast-paced world of learning, mastering new information can feel overwhelming. Whether you're tackling a new programming language, absorbing complex technical concepts, or even learning a new skill, our brains are constantly bombarded with data. To manage this flood of information, one of the most effective and natural strategies is chunking.
What is a Chunk?¶
Chunking is an amazing and surprisingly natural way to learn new information. The basic idea is to isolate a piece of information as a single unit. This could be a concept or a fact etc. Sometimes these chunks may forever stay a single unit, but often as you continue to learn they compound into new chunks and link to other chunks. Let me demonstrate using a concept with which most of us should be familiar.
As children we are initially taught to recognise single letters. We go over them again and again to ensure we recognise them visually and audibly. At this early stage, each letter is a Chunk of information. Eventually we memorise the letters and our parents and teachers can point to a letter at random and we immediately vocalise its phonic. Then we start to string those letters together into words.
To begin with it's a lengthy task of processing each letter one by one before we know what the word is. But soon that particular combination of letters becomes one whole word. At this point the word is now its own Chunk. A composite of smaller Chunks if you will. At this point we only look at the word and the meaning of all the letters combined enters into our mind.
Why is this Relevant?¶
Working memory is the part of our brain that is used to reason and make decisions. But it can only juggle so much information at once. Have you ever had so many things happening that you felt unable to focus at all? This is your working memory being overloaded.
When we first start creating a chunk of information, it might take up our entire working memory. But as we grapple with the idea, connect it with other knowledge and generally begin to understand it, it takes up less space. It compresses, if you will. The more we understand the chunk the smaller it becomes and the easier it is to hold it in our working memory alongside other chunks.
Going back to the reading example, we progress from reading letters, to reading words, to attaching meaning to those words and eventually we can read a book and visualise the entire scene being described. For a child, reading can be exhausting. But as teenagers and adults we have compressed the knowledge to the point where reading can be relaxing.
This is the end goal: for the information we are studying to become second nature. Your brain is going to chunk the information whether you consciously help it or not. Might as well lend a hand, right?
The Best Way to Create a Chunk¶
Focus¶
Engage Focus Mode! You start by focusing intentionally on the information you are learning. Actively minimise distractions.
Understand¶
Take the time to ensure that you understand the information. Split your time between Focus and Diffuse modes to help your brain process the new information, especially if you find the topic difficult. Follow along with any example problems and ensure you understand the purpose of each step in the solution. Test yourself to validate your understanding. Many educational resources provide additional problem sets to reinforce learning.
Tip
LLMs such as ChatGPT are excellent resources that can generate additional questions that you can use to test yourself. But make sure you instruct the LLM to double check its own answers so you aren't led off course.
Contextualise¶
Knowledge needs to be applied in order to be useful. Once you understand the chunk, make sure you know when to use it. If your resource doesn't adequately explain this then you may have to do your own research. I have personally used ChatGPT many times to shine a light on when something would need to be used. There is little purpose having a screwdriver if you can't recognise an opportunity to use it!
This step will help you see how the chunk fits into its surroundings. It will give you a peak at the bigger picture. And each time you recognise when one chunk connects to another via the big picture, you reinforce both chunks! Two for the price of one.
The Best Way to Remember a Chunk 
¶
A common habit for learners is to re-read material as a form of studying. And when you gloss over the material — or your own notes — and recognise the information it can lead to a false sense of knowledge.
Warning
Recognising is not the same as remembering!
Instead we need to use recall. Which means pulling the information out of your own memory. At its most basic, recall is as simple as covering the material you're reading and trying to recall what you just read. What was the main idea? What was the chunk?
Train yourself to identify main ideas. It's tempting to feel you have to remember everything you read. In truth, a lot of the content is there to emphasise the main ideas. Identify those main ideas and the learning burden lessens.
Taking the practice further requires testing yourself routinely. Flashcards are the traditional technique here. Physical or digital. If you can create the questions yourself then even better! Try to at least test yourself on a subject before you go to sleep and the day after you studied it. The retrieval process helps to ingrain these chunks into our long-term memory. An effective way to implement recall is Spaced Repetition.
This post is part of a series: How We Learn
This content was inspired by A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science — By Barbara Oakley, Ph.D.
