Chunking: A Student's Best Weapon for Exams - EdEfficiency

• Encoding: The act of chunking strengthens the connections between individual pieces of information. When you encode information (learn it for the first time), you want it to enter your short term memory with as much street cred as possible ––having it in a group gives it the street cred it means to enter your long term memory earlier.
• Relational Power: Chunking taps into the brain’s natural ability to identify patterns and relationships. By grouping similar ideas together, we can see how they connect and build a stronger mental framework for understanding the bigger picture.

Take AP United States History (APUSH) for example. You’re studying conflicts between Native American tribes and European settlers throughout American history.

• Try grouping conflicts by region, timeframe, or theme

• Chunk 1: Conflicts over land acquisition in the Northeast (King Philip’s War, Metacom’s War)
• Chunk 2: Resistance movements in the Southeast (The Creek War, Tecumseh’s Rebellion)

Or, you might chunk Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR)’s New Deal policies if you’re studying the Great Depression:

• Chunk 1: Job programs (CCC, CWA, PWA, TVA, etc.)
• Chunk 2: Aid programs (REA, FERA, etc.)

This chunking approach makes the information easier to digest, but most importantly, easier to compare to other pieces of information . If you want to compare the job programs of FDR to Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ)’s Great Society programs, you can just say “FDR’s job programs were more robust than LBJ’s” instead of having to compare each individual FDR organization to its LBJ counterpart.

Learning is a cyclical process . Chunking on the first pass should focus on grasping the overall structure and key concepts. Subsequent passes can then deal with clarifying the relationships between the smaller details within each chunk.

By incorporating chunking into your study routine, you’ll be well on your way to transforming overwhelming information into manageable, memorable knowledge. So next time you’re faced with a mountain of information, remember – chunking is your secret weapon for conquering complex concepts and achieving deeper learning.