学会如何学习学习笔记——2. 1 组块——组块概论

组块？

本单元中我们将探讨组块这一概念。组块指你的大脑可轻松获得的一个紧密的信息包。我们将探讨你能怎样形成组块、怎样利用组块提升自己对学习内容的理解力与创造力以及组块能怎样帮助你在测验时表现更好。我们还将探索学习时的能力错觉、过度学习的挑战以及交叉学习的优势。

​​​​​​​组块概论

This week, we're going to be talking about chunks, compact packages of information that your mind can easily access. We'll talk about how you can form chunks. How you can use them to improve your understanding of, and creativity with the material, and how chunks can help you do better on tests. We will also talk about illusions of competence in learning. This is when you're using ineffective study methods to fool your mind into thinking you're learning something when you're mostly just wasting your time. We'll cover what those less effective study methods are and tell you what methods research has shown will work better to help you in your studies. Finally, we'll talk about something called overlearning, which can solidly ingrain information in your mind, but also can be a little like digging deeper ruts as you might spin your wheels ineffectively in learning. You can make your study time more valuable by interleaving, providing intelligent variety in your studies. I'm Barbara Oakley. Thanks for learning how to learn.

本周，我们将讨论“组块”，即你的大脑可以轻松访问的信息的紧凑包。我们将讨论如何形成组块，如何使用它们来提高你对材料的理解和创造力，以及组块如何帮助你在考试中表现更好。我们还将讨论学习中的“能力错觉”。当你使用无效的学习方法欺骗你的大脑认为你在学习一些东西时，实际上大部分时间只是在浪费时间。我们将介绍哪些是效果较差的学习方法，并告诉你哪些方法研究表明更有效，可以帮助你更好地学习。最后，我们将讨论一种称为“过度学习”的现象，它可以将信息牢固地印在你的脑海中，但也可能像挖更深的车辙一样，让你在无效的学习中陷入困境。通过交错学习，为你的学习提供智能的多样性，你可以使你的学习时间更有价值。感谢学习如何学习。

什么是组块？

In this video, we're going to answer the question. What is a chunk? When you first look at a brand new concept it sometimes doesn't make much sense, as shown by the jumbled puzzle pieces here. Chunking is the mental leap that helps you unite bits of information together through meaning. The new logical whole makes the chunk easier to remember, and also makes it easier to fit the chunk into the larger picture of what you're learning. Just memorizing a fact without understanding or context doesn't help you understand what's really going on or how the concept fits together with other concepts you're learning.

Notice there are no interlocking puzzle edges on the puzzle piece to help you fit it to other pieces. We talked earlier about working memory and how those four slots of working memory appear to hang out in the part of your brain right behind your forehead known as the prefrontal cortex. When you're 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 that you might have in various parts of your brain. Remember, this is different from the random connections of the diffuse mode. Focusing your 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.

Interestingly when you're stressed your attentional octopus begins to lose the ability to make some of those connections. This is why your brain doesn't seem to work right when you're angry, stressed, or afraid. Chunks are pieces of information, neuroscientifically speaking, through bound together through meaning or use. You can take the letters P-O and P and bind them together into one conceptual easy to remember chunk, the word pop. [SOUND] It's like converting a, a cumbersome computer file into a ZIP file. Underneath that single pop chunk is a symphony of neurons that have learned to sing in tune with one another. The complex neural activity that ties together our simplifying abstract chunks of thought. Whether those thoughts pertain to acronyms, ideas, or concepts are the basis of much of the science, literature, and art.

Let's say you want to learn how to speak Spanish. If you're a child hanging around a Spanish speaking household, learning Spanish is as natural as breathing. Your mother says, mama. And you say, mama, right back to her. Your neurons fire and wire together in a shimmering mental loop cementing the relationship in your mind between the sound mama and your mother's smiling face. That scintillating neural loop is one memory trace, which is connected of course to many other related memory traces. The best programs for learning language,  such as those of the Defense Language Institute where I learned Russian, incorporate structured practice that includes repetition and rote focus mode learning of the language along with more diffuse-like free speech with native speakers. The goal is to embed the basic words and patterns so you can speak as freely and creatively in your new language as you do in your native  language. As it turns out one of the first steps towards gaining expertise in academic topics is to create conceptual chunks, mental leaps that unite scattered bits of information through meaning. The concept of neural chunks also applies to sports, music, dance, really just about anything that humans can get good at.

Basically, a chunk means a network of neurons that are used to firing together so you can think a thought or perform an action smoothly and effectively. Focused practice and repetition, the creation of strong memory traces, helps you to create chunks. The path to expertise is built little by little, small chunks can become larger, and all of the expertise serves to underpin more creative interpretations as you gradually become a master of the material. In other words, as you'll see later, practice and repetition in building chunks aren't all you need to become a truly creative master of the material you're learning.

Chunking helps your brain run more efficiently. Once you chunk an idea, a concept, or an action, you don't need to remember all the little underlying details. You've got the main idea, the chunk, and that's enough. It's like getting dressed in the morning. You just think one simple thought like, I'll get dressed, but it's amazing when you realize the complex swirl of underlying activities that take place with that one, simple chunk of thought.

Next, we'll talk about how you can form a chunk. I'm Barbara Oakley. Thanks for learning how to learn.

在这个视频中，我们将回答一个问题：什么是组块？当你第一次看到一个全新的概念时，有时候它可能不太容易理解，就像这里混乱的拼图碎片一样。组块是帮助你通过意义将信息片段联系在一起的心理跳跃。新的、逻辑上的整体使得组块更容易记住，也更容易将其融入到你正在学习的更大范围内。仅仅记忆一个事实而不理解或没有上下文背景，并不能帮助你真正理解发生了什么或者这个概念如何与你正在学习的其他概念相联系。

请注意，拼图碎片上没有相互连接的边缘来帮助你将其与其他碎片拼接在一起。我们之前谈到了工作记忆以及这四个工作记忆槽是如何出现在你大脑后部的前额叶皮层这个部分的。当你专注于某件事情时，就好像你有一只章鱼一样。当需要时，注意力的章鱼会通过这四个工作记忆槽伸出触手，帮助你与大脑各个部分可能存在的信息建立联系。请记住，这与随机连接的扩散模式不同。将大脑的不同部分联系起来以将想法联系在一起是集中学习模式的重要组成部分。这也是帮助你开始创建组块的常见方法。有趣的是，当你感到压力时，你的注意力章鱼开始失去建立这些联系的能力。这就是为什么当你生气、紧张或害怕时，你的大脑似乎无法正常工作的原因。

从神经科学的角度来看，组块是信息片段，通过意义或使用绑定在一起。你可以将字母P-O和P结合在一起，形成一个易于记忆的概念组块，即单词pop [声音]。这就像将一个繁琐的计算机文件转换为ZIP文件一样。在单个pop组块下面是一个已经学会一起唱歌的神经元交响乐。这种复杂的神经活动将我们简化的抽象思维片段联系在一起。无论这些想法是关于首字母缩写词、想法还是概念，它们都是科学、文学和艺术的基础。

假设你想学习如何说西班牙语。如果你是一个生活在讲西班牙语的家庭中的小孩，学习西班牙语就像呼吸一样自然。你妈妈说“mama”，你就回应她“mama”。你的神经元在闪烁的思维循环中点燃并连接在一起，在你的脑海中巩固了声音“mama”和你妈妈微笑的脸之间的关系。这个闪耀的神经循环是一个记忆痕迹，当然它与许多其他相关的记忆痕迹相连。学习语言的最佳程序，例如我在国防语言学院学习俄语的程序，包括重复和机械地专注于语言的结构练习，以及与母语人士进行更类似于自由演讲的分散式交流。其目的是嵌入基本词汇和模式，以便你可以在新语言中像在母语中一样自由和创造性地表达自己。事实证明，在学术主题中获得专业知识的第一步是创建概念组块，即通过意义将分散的信息片段联系在一起的心理跳跃。神经组块的概念也适用于运动、音乐、舞蹈等几乎所有人类可以擅长的事物。

基本上，组块意味着一组被用来一起发射的神经元，这样你就可以顺利有效地思考一个想法或执行一个动作。专注的练习和重复、强大的记忆痕迹的创建有助于你创建组块。成为专家的道路是一点一点建立起来的，小的组块可以变得更大，所有的专业知识都为你逐渐掌握材料提供了更富有创造力的解释基础。换句话说，正如你稍后将看到的，构建组块的练习和重复并不是你真正成为你所学习的材料的创造性大师所需要的全部。

组块有助于让你的大脑运行得更高效。一旦你对一个想法、一个概念或一个动作进行了组块处理，你就不需要记住所有底层的细节。你已经掌握了主要的想法、组块，这就足够了。这就像早上穿衣服一样。你只需要想一个简单的想法，比如“我要穿衣服”，但当你意识到这个简单组块的思想背后发生的复杂活动时，你会感到非常惊讶。

接下来，我们将讨论如何形成组块。感谢学习如何学习。