How People Learn Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition (2000) / Chapter Skim
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From page 31... ...
2. Experts have acquired a great deal of content knowledge that is organized in ways that reflect a deep understanding of their subject matter.
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. In this pioneering research, the chess masters did exhibit considerable breadth and depth to their searches, but so did the lesser ranked chess players.
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Chess masters are able to chunk together several chess pieces in a configuration that is governed by some strategic component of the game. Lacking a hierarchical, highly organized structure for the domain, novices cannot use this chunking strategy.
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34 HOW PEOPLE LEARN, EXPANDED EDITION BOX2.1 What Experts See .
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When chess pieces were randomized and presented for 5 seconds, the recall of the chess master and Class A player were the same as the novice they placed from 2 to 3 positions correctly. Data over trials for valid and random middle games are shown in Figure 2.2.
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From page 36... ...
Random numbers Chess pieces Children with chess experiences Adults without chess experiences the expert teachers had very different understandings of the events they were watching than did the novice teachers; see examples in Box 2.2. The idea that experts recognize features and patterns that are not noticed by novices is potentially important for improving instruction.
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HOW EXPERTS DIFFER FROM NOVICES BOX2.2 What Expert and Novice Teachers Notice Expert and novice teachers notice very different things when viewing a videotape of a classroom lesson. Expert 6: On the left monitor, the Novice 1: .
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In representing a schema for an incline plane, the novice's schema contains primarily surface features of the incline plane. In contrast, the expert's schema immediately connects the notion of an incline plane with the laws of physics and the conditions under which laws are applicable.
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FIGURE 2.4 An example of sortings of physics problems made by novices and experts. Each picture above represents a diagram that can be drawn from the storyline of a physics problem taken from an introductory physics textbook.
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40 HOW PEOPLE LEARN, EXPANDED EDITION Permission to post Figure 2.5 on the Web denied Figure is printed in the book but is not available onlin e.
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HOW EXPERTS DIFFER FROM NOVICES BOX2.3 Understanding and Problem Solving In mathematics, experts are more likely than novices to first try to understand problems, rather than simply attempt to plug numbers into formulas. Experts and students in one study (Paige and Simon, 1966)
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criticized curricula that were "a mile wide and an inch deep" and argued that this is much more of a problem in America than in most other countries. Research on expertise suggests that a superficial coverage of many topics in the domain may be a poor way to help students develop the competencies that will prepare them for future learning and work.
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One way to help students learn about conditions of applicability is to assign word problems that require students to use appropriate concepts and formulas (Lesgold, 1984, 1988; Simon, 19801. If well designed, these problems can help students learn when, where, and why to use the knowledge they are learning.
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44 HOW PEOPLE LEARN, EXPANDED EDITION effectively, people need to know when and why it is appropriate to apply the maxim "too many cooks spoil the broth" versus "many hands make light work" or "he who hesitates is lost" versus "haste makes waste" (see Bransford and Stein, 19931. FLUENT RETRIEVAL People's abilities to retrieve relevant knowledge can vary from being "effortful" to "relatively effortless" (fluent)
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From page 45... ...
argues that pedagogical content knowledge is not equivalent to knowledge of a content domain plus a generic set of teaching strategies; instead, teaching strategies differ across disciplines. Expert teachers know the kinds of difficulties that students are likely to face; they know how to tap into students' existing knowledge in order to make new information meaningful; and they know how to assess their students' progress.
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46 HOW PEOPLE LEARN, EXPANDED EDITION BOX2.4 Teaching Ham/et Two new English teachers, Jake and Steven, with similar subject-matter backgrounds from elite private universities, set out to teach Hamlet in high school (Grossman, 1990)
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The Lincoln expert brought detailed content knowledge to the documents and easily interpreted them; the other historian was familiar with some of the broad themes in the documents but quickly became confused in the details. In fact, at the beginning of the task, the second historian reacted no differently than a group of future high school teachers who were faced with the same task (Wineburg and Fournier, 19941: attempting to harmonize discrepant information about Lincoln's position, they both appealed to an array of present social forms and institutions such as speech writers, press conferences, and "spin doctors" to explain why things seemed discrepant.
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The fact that experts are more likely than novices to recognize meaningful patterns of information applies in all domains, whether chess, electronics, mathematics, or classroom teaching. In deGroot's (1965)
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Many designs for curriculum instruction and assessment practices fail to emphasize the importance of conditionalized knowledge. For example, texts often present facts and formulas with little attention to helping students learn the conditions under which they are most useful.
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An example in mathematics is getting students to recognize when a proof is needed. Metacognition can help students develop personally relevant pedagogical content knowledge, analogous to the pedagogical content knowledge available to effective teachers (principle 51.
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