Developed by Mark Halley
Competencies Addressed: Chunking skills/Spatial Structuring
Time Required for Activity: 20 mins
Objective:
To learn about Chunking Skills from an English text.
In this video, Aaron Patzer provides a short introduction to personal finance management.
Preparation
You will watch a video in which Aaron Patzer, CEO of Mint, offers some tips to viewers about managing their personal finances. In the video, Patzer and others provide ideas about personal finance, and they describe how their money management tool, Mint.com, can help users to manage their money better.
If you are not familiar with Mint.com, do a bit of research online to learn about what features they offer to their users.
Watch the Video
Watch the video in its entirety. Did your preparation help you to predict some of the concepts in the video?
Interpret the Video Consecutively
Next, you will interpret the video consecutively. Since you have already watched the video once, you should have a basic idea of how information is structured. As you play the video this time, pause the video when you feel you have received a sufficient ‘chunk’ of information to provide an interpretation. When deciding which chunks to interpret, consider factors such as:
- amount of information,
- information content (e.g., pausing between main concepts), and
- who is speaking.
Reflect
Spend a moment thinking about these questions.
- How did you decide to chunk the discourse?
- What linguistic or non-linguistic factors impacted decisions?
- What challenges did you face when interpreting the video consecutively?
- Did you forget any main concepts or specific terminology?
- Did you struggle to maintain the speakers’ mannerisms and style of speech?
Check Your Work
Here is one possibility for how the text could be chunked. It may have longer or shorter segments than you used. Click on the description of the chunk if you want to see the section from the video.
Start – 0:31 Introducing the three main points
0:31- 0:54 – Point 1: How tool can help people get out of debt
0:54-1:17 – One woman’s experience of ease of accessing information about accounts
1:17-1:42 – The same woman’s increased awareness about where her money goes
1:42-2:06 – Point 2: How tool can help with investments
2:06-2:17 – Man in couple sees tool as helping achieve retirement plan goals
2:17- 2:28 – Woman talks about paying attention to investments
2:28-2:45 – Woman in couple appreciates choices for achieving goals
2:46 – 3:14 – Point 3: Importance of emergency fund
3:14- 3:42 The value of renter’s insurance
More Reflection
- How did this chunking of the text compare to where you paused the video?
- How did having someone else make decisions about where to stop the text affect your work?
- Were there segments in this example that were too short or too long?
- Anything else you noticed in reviewing another way of chunking the text?
Interpret the Video Consecutively
Learning Principle: For this step, you may want to use some spaced practice i.e. give yourself a day or two before returning the activity. Let yourself forget some of what you know about the text.
You Try
Now that you have reflected on how the text is chunked, try interpreting it a second time using the sections that are pre-created. Reflect on the overall experience.
Start – 0:31 Introducing the three main points
0:31- 0:54 – Point 1: How tool can help people get out of debt
0:54-1:17 – One woman’s experience of ease of accessing information about accounts
1:17-1:42 – The same woman’s increased awareness about where her money goes
1:42-2:06 – Point 2: How tool can help with investments
2:06-2:17 – Man in couple sees tool as helping achieve retirement plan goals
2:17- 2:28 – Woman talks about paying attention to investments
2:28-2:45 – Woman in couple appreciates choices for achieving goals
2:46 – 3:14 – Point 3: Importance of emergency fund
3:14- 3:42 The value of renter’s insurance
