To build expertise, it's essential to have a solid understanding of your chosen field. Knowledge can be abstract and elusive, so how can one ensure they truly grasp their area of interest? The answer is surprisingly simple: take notes. This way, you can build your expertise one note at a time.
My current strategy involves what I call 'concept notes.' These notes are where I clarify for myself what I've learned about a concept.
It is based on the idea of the structure of knowledge from Erickson (1995). According to this model, a concept is a way to conceptualize factual information, and it also serves as a fundamental unit for constructing principles or theories in a chosen field. Bằng việc dần dần xây dựng được những hiểu biết của những khái niệm chính trong ngành học, bạn dần dần xây dựng được hiểu biết chuyên ngành của mình. I will go into more detail in a future post, nhưng những hình ảnh dươi đây là tóm tắt và giải thích về kết cấu kiến thức của Erickson (1995).
Today, I want to explain the process of how I create my concept notes. I use a three-part structure to develop a comprehensive understanding of a topic: (1) theory, (2) evidence, (3) application. In this post, I will go into detail and explain what I do in each step.
Theories typically offer a concise explanation of how things function. For example, the human information processing theory describes how we process information. Starting with theory provides a structured way to understand how others have interpreted the world.
Depending on my level of understanding, I select easy content is just a bit hard enough for me to read. As a beginner, I prefer books; for example, to learn about learning science in the aspect of note-taking, I read books from Scott Young, Dr. Fiona McPherson & Zhongzhi Shi (more in the reference section). Books are simpler and offer a comprehensive overview of the subject, useful for building my background understanding. As my background knowledge grows, I seek foundational papers, which are original paper/ author that explaining theories.
By the end of this process, I typically have read a collection of books and papers providing various perspectives on the same theory, which I then synthesize into one concept note.
The beauty of writing a concept note is that it helps consolidate your knowledge. It also serves as a tool for verification and keeps track of the development of your understanding. Since it's a note, it can be continuously updated.
Another beauty of concept notes is that they help me build the foundation of my knowledge, which can be generalized and applied in different contexts. For example, once I understand the concepts of working memory and cognitive load, I can use the arguments and theories to explain various contexts, for example, the impact of distraction on learning performance.
However, I remind myself not to over-rely on any one theory, as this can limit my perspective. I believe that any theory describes only a part of reality, and human interpretation is always biased.
While theories provide a general explanation of how things work, they can be too abstract. Therefore, I look for empirical evidence to verify these theories. This involves understanding how researchers developed these ideas and how theories are applied to explain the phenomena in different experiment.
Importantly, this process brings context to the theory, making it easier to understand and explain. For example, two theories explaining the impact of note-taking on learning are encoding theory and external storage theory (PA Mueller, 2014). Reading research papers helps me see how these theories are applied to explain the difference in performance of learners using paper notes versus digital notes.