How Experts Differ from Novices

After reading the second chapter on “How Experts Differ from Novices”, I certainly believe that we can all learn to follow the principles of expert knowledge in order to excel in our fields. There is a common implicit assumption that an expert is someone who knows all the answers and this is untrue. They instead, approach new situations flexibly and learn throughout their lifetimes. Experts are people that have acquired extensive knowledge that allows them to notice, organize, represent and interpret the information in their environment. They seek understanding of problems by linking big ideas or core concepts. A novice will approach a problem by searching and shaping answers that fit their intuitions. Experts retrieve relevant knowledge effortlessly and fluently. A novice, on the other hand retrieves knowledge effortfully. Experts use up their attentional efforts on learning, while novices demand a lot of it to remembering. This is one of the reasons why experts take more time to fully understanding a problem and opt for utilizing a solution strategy. One of the abilities that experts have developed is to monitor their approach to problem solving (metacognitive) and decide when it is not adequate. So when they recognize the limits of their current knowledge, they take steps to remedy their understanding and overcome difficulties. Not all is good about experts, though, due to the fact that they may not be good at teaching others. They tend to forget what is easy and what is difficult for students. Experts may be good at content knowledge but lack the pedagogical content knowledge that expert teachers have. This is why the latter, are able to detect difficulties, make new information meaningful from tapping into existing knowledge and assess the progress of the students, supplying meaningful feedback information.

The key to all this is learning how to see. Novices should to be immersed in learning experiences that enhance their abilities to recognize patterns of information to develop confidence and competence for accessing relevant knowledge. Current approaches to curriculum design provide little time or may make it difficult for students to organize their ideas and knowledge meaningfully. The TIMSS criticized curricula that were a mile wide and an inch deep, often providing a superficial coverage of many topics. This may be a poor way to help students develop key competencies for the 21st century. In order to prepare novices for future learning and work, they need to benefit from models of how experts approach problem solving and also receive further coaching in using similar strategies. This will result in developing their ability to teach themselves. Just as expert knowledge is conditionalized, students need help in understanding the contexts in which knowledge is useful, learning where, when and why to use information.

To conclude, there is, however, as the book states, a major challenge for theories of learning to understand how particular kinds of learning experiences develop adaptive expertise or virtuosos. Further studies need to be made in order to provide novices strategies to becoming adaptive experts.