01 February 2015 / by Vincent Chieppa

Chunking information & the power it unlocks

The most common way of chunking information is by arbitrarily grouping it together. For example, imagine you have to remember the names of four of your students. You will simply split them into two pairs and memorize the first pair followed by the second.

This this refers to chunking information based on its meaning. For instance, if you want to memorize the age of everyone in a group, you can begin by chunking the information by organizing people by their age. The next step would be to remember the people that belong to each group.

It comes more naturally to commit information to memory by identifying a pattern in the given information. This is because you simply have to remember the pattern rather than a list of separate pieces of information.

As an example, look at this letter sequence: AEIMQUY. Did you notice that these letters are just every fourth letter of the alphabet? So if you want to commit this information to short term memory, you now have the pattern that is the key to unlock the whole sequence.

As we have seen, chunking information can also help overcome some short term memory restrictions. Experiments have shown that short term memory has a limited capacity to remember 7 (plus or minus 2) chunks at a time. Nevertheless, we are able to remember more by chunking information.

For example, if you have to commit an (international) 11-digit phone number to your short term memory you will probably be unable to do it. However, by chunking the information in units, you will be able to do it with greater ease.

As an example, imagine you have to remember the phone number of your Kenyan Director of Studies (+25490573681). You will find that by chunking these numbers into groups you will now be able to remember it with ease (2-54-90-57-36-81).

Here you will find an activity to illustrate how chunking information works. Also, feel free to read up more about not only about chunking and other memory techniques, but also on how to apply it in the classroom:

The Atlantic

The Peak Performance Center

Professional Teacher Board

Skills Toolbox

15

March 2012

250 EXTRA hours of daylight a year?

by Radmila Gurkova

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVpFc9xERdY This month we ‘Spring Forward’ and move the clocks on by one hour to move into Summertime. In the UK MP’s are deliberating whether to permanently move the clocks forward by one hour to continuously keep the same time. By putting the clocks forward, (Spring Forward or Fall B...

15

March 2012

iPhones - easier than tying your shoelaces

by Radmila Gurkova

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzi2RIt8_nk Did you know that children today find it much easier to use an iPhone than to tie their shoelaces? A report shows today that as many as 45 per cent of children in the UK aged between five and 13 cannot tie their shoelaces but 67 per cent know how to use their iPhones and DVD players. ...

10

March 2012

Tag questions can be difficult, can't they?

by Radmila Gurkova

P4 - tag questions Use: Tag questions are used to verify if a statement is true or not. Something we use them in a sarcastic tone to make a strong point. Tag Questions:...

10

March 2012

She COULD be a good teacher

by Radmila Gurkova

P4 - Modals (could) for expressing ability, request, permission, possibility subject + could + main verb Can you use modal verb? Use - Could does not change Remember: Could cannot be used with to I could to swi...

10

March 2012

I am GOING TO learn English

by Radmila Gurkova

P2 - expressing future actions with "to be going to" We use 'will' and 'be going to' to express future actions but what is the difference? Future tense - things that are going to happen Two ways to talk about the future: Will - Tomorrow I will eat a sandwich To be going to - I am going to eat pasta...

10

March 2012

Help!!!!! How to use exclamations?

by Radmila Gurkova

P2 - exclamations Please Help Me! What a lovely day! Don't do that! That's amazing! Exclamations are often used outside of formal writing to express strong feelings such as, surprise, joy, anger. It is used at the end of the sentence instead of a full stop. Exclamations ofte...

09

March 2012

Friday Fun: The History of English #10

by Radmila Gurkova

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70KHDbLmr_I The history of the English language series concludes with this final video that shows how English has now spread around the world and is spoken by over 1.5 billion people. It's interesting to note that only 1/4 of these people are native English speakers. So there's no reason to not learn English!...

08

March 2012

St. Patrick's Day - Don't make a parade out it!!!!

by Radmila Gurkova

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y07at1bU89Q Many people around the world celebrate St Patrick's Day on the March 17th He is the most commonly recognised Patron saint of Ireland and commemorates Christianity being introduced to this Emerald Isle. However - St Patrick was not Irish; he was from Wales and therefore Welsh. He used t...

08

March 2012

Do Schools Kill Creativity?

by Radmila Gurkova

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY Creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson recently challenged the way we educate our children and made a profound case stating that schools undermine rather than nurture. He feels that ‘‘we are educating people out of their creativity,'' and that children today are ignored and stigmatized....

08

March 2012

February Monthly Quiz

by Radmila Gurkova

Test your knowledge with our monthly quiz ...

Inicio

Contact us

01 February 2015 / by Vincent Chieppa

Chunking information & the power it unlocks

15

15

10

10

10

10

09

08

08

08