Chase and Simon used perception and short-term
memory recall tasks to determine underlying skills in master chess players when
compared to either medium or beginner level players. Master chess players were
shown to be able to reconstruct chess positions almost perfectly after viewing
boards for 5 seconds, despite struggling just as much as other levels with
reconstructing random boards. Master players are able to effectively chunk structures
of meaningful positions. Meaningful positions correspond to common
configurations of pieces, such as common arrangements of pawns and rooks in a
castled-King configuration. Master players were also found to be able to group
larger chunks and more of them compared to lower skill levels of chess players.
It was interesting to see how master players
were no better at memorizing random configurations; rather, master players use
their experience in playing to memorize common configurations of pieces very
rapidly. With respect to Chi’s investigation of novices and experts solving
physics problems, it is interesting to see how experts in both fields
successfully tackle problems. Thinking ahead to teaching in a classroom, I’m
curious about how we as teachers can help novice students think like experts.
How does this process occur besides experience and learning over a long period
of time? Is there a way to expedite the process with certain instructional
techniques or types of problem solving? I think there might be a way to help
students recognize the merits to memorizing in chunks. However, experience
might be needed to be able to recognize the most common “chunks,” as stated in
Chase and Simon’s article. This technique reminds me of strategies recommended
in organic chemistry; being able to recognize how molecules react is much more successful
and easier than memorizing hundreds of combinations of interactions.
Chi investigated how novice and expert
physicists approach and solve problems and, through four studies, found that
novices tended to sort problems by surface similarity (objects or physical
terms/configurations) while experts tended to sort problems by “deep
structure,” i.e. physical principles that allow one to solve problems. Not
surprisingly, intermediate level students were found to group problems not
entirely be surface similarity but not entirely by “deep structure” either but
somewhere in between these two techniques. Novices were also found to only
mention object categories rather than second order features, such as
descriptions of states or conditions, like experts did.
Thinking ahead to the future, it is curious to
think about how novice and expert students in a biology classroom will look,
most likely very similar to novice and expert physicists. For the purpose of
considering a future classroom, it’s safe to assume novices will behave
similarly across science subjects, and I would also predict biology novices to
sort problems by surface features and identify features by object categories
rather than by deep structure and second order features. Again, I wonder how we
as teachers can quicken the transformation of a novice to an expert student.
Perhaps one technique that would assist in the
transformation of novice students to expert ones is collaboration as depicted
by Galileo’s discussion. Student led inquiry based collaboration shares
knowledge between students of varying skill levels, and can allow novice
students to emulate thought patterns of experts in the middle of problem
solving. Lehrer’s proposal of engaging students in the practices of practicing
scientists also has merit in advancing a novice’s level with real world experience.
I also thought a lot about the time constrictions that teachers would face as they attempted to transform novice students into more expert level thinkers. In physics, one thing that I think can help this process is by learning the relationships between conceptual material before moving into math-related problems. For me, this helped me consider what the underlying scientific concepts were used in a problem and prevented me from looking only at keywords in questions stems. However, this wasn't exactly a natural way of thinking for me, and a teacher may not necessarily have the time required to teach this technique when they are forced to meet specific educational standards.
ReplyDeleteI also thought a lot about the time constrictions that teachers would face as they attempted to transform novice students into more expert level thinkers. In physics, one thing that I think can help this process is by learning the relationships between conceptual material before moving into math-related problems. For me, this helped me consider what the underlying scientific concepts were used in a problem and prevented me from looking only at keywords in questions stems. However, this wasn't exactly a natural way of thinking for me, and a teacher may not necessarily have the time required to teach this technique when they are forced to meet specific educational standards.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the chunking technique. I believe it allows you to especially in the harder sciences and math's to put together and draw from resources that you have and create small monikers to memorize the material. Yet I find that if used anytime outside of a two day window as shown in the studies of Simon and Chase short term memory is interrupted
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