The following information is a brief summation of some of the key findings in How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School. The volume was commissioned by the National Research Council and published by the National Academies Press.

"Research shows that it is not simply general abilities, such as memory or intelligence, nor the use of general strategies that differentiate experts from novices. Instead, experts have acquired extensive knowledge that affects what they notice and how they organize, represent, and interpret information in their environment." (Bransford, Brown, Cocking, 2000 pg. 31)

• Experts recognize meaningful patterns and relationships. These patterns are often "chunked" into larger bits of information organized around a core concept. For example, in one research study (Egan and Schwartz, 1979), circuit technicians were able to memorize large portions of complex diagrams after only a few seconds of viewing. This was accomplished by chunking several individual circuit elements (resistors, capacitors, etc.) into the larger category of amplifier. When asked to recall the information, the expert recalled one single "amplifier chunk".
• An experts' knowledge is organized into complex arrays of schemas which are concentrated around core concepts and big picture ideas. A single piece of information is often connected to multiple other pieces of information through networks of knowledge created over time. To better illustrate this point, consider the study by Chi, Glaser, and Rees (1982) in which novices and experts in physics were asked to sort a collection of problems. The novices created piles based heavily on surface features of the problem (e.g. what objects were involved in the problem, what formulas could be used) whereas the experts sorted the problems based on principles which could be applied to solve the problem (e.g. conservation of energy).
• Experts have what is referred to as "conditionalized" knowledge. This means that experts have the ability to quickly sift through the vast amount of information surrounding a given topic and retrieve the chunks which are most relevant given the context of a situation or problem.
• The conditioning of knowledge often leads to automaticity, or the ability to complete a task without occupying the mind with the lower-level details required for the task. Think of when you first learned to drive a car. It was impossible to have a conversation or change the radio. All of your attention was focused on not wrecking the vehicle. In time, we are able to more while driving because we do not have to think about how to drive the car. This is significant in the classroom because once a student has automated a certain skill, they have more available working memory to concentrate on organizing and storing new information.

• Students enter the classroom with pre-conceived notions of our content and the way the world works generally. These preconceptions are often misguided or all together false making it difficult to build a foundation of knowledge upon which to build a network of schemas.
• Novices in a field do not generally have a wealth of pre-existing knowledge from which they can recall or upon which they can build. Thus, retention of new material is difficult for the novice because there is little prior knowledge to which the learner can connect this new information.
• The novice is typically unable to see the patterns underlying the fundamental principles of a field of study. Therefore, novices tend to approach the organization of knowledge in a piece-meal fashion in which isolated facts are haphazardly stored over time. This organizational structure impedes retrieval of information and makes it more difficult than usual to transfer knowledge from one context to another.
• The fluency of the expert often adds to the frustration of the novice. The expert unknowingly conceals many of the principles and concepts which the novice needs to learn because they are second nature to the expert. Consequently, the novice does not observe these principles as they are implicit in the expert's work.

• Model your own critical thinking and problem solving strategies by explicitly verbalizing them for your students. Also, consider providing graphic organizers and/or guided notes that illustrate your organizational structure of the material. This will simultaneously help to free up more working memory for students during lecture.
• Design activities for students in which they must explicitly explain their thought process and rationale for an answer either verbally or in writing. Having students teach a lesson (or a portion of a lesson) is a great way to force them to organize material in a logical and coherent way.
• Seek out misconceptions and assess prior knowledge early on in the course. Students learn by connecting new information to pre-existing knowledge. If this pre-existing knowledge is flawed so to will be the schema built on it.
• Remain cognizant of your expertise and actively seek out areas in your instruction in which it conceals fundamental concepts and principles.

Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington: National Academy of sciences.

Chi M.T.H., R. Glaser, & E. Rees. (1982) Expertise in problem solving. In Advances in the Psychology of Human Intelligence (Vol. 1). R.J. Sternberg, ed. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Egan, D.E., & B.J. Schwartz. (1979) Chunking in recall of symbolic drawings. Memory and Cognition (7). 149-158.