This week my interest led me to exploring the following questions: What is a novice? What is an expert? What is the difference between how a novice and an expert learn? In order to learn about these ideas, I read the text, How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience and School , which touched on the ideas of a novice and an expert. However, a big concept that remained consistent through the three chapters I read was the difference between learning and understanding.

In chapter 2, Bransford et al. (2000), explain the characteristics of experts. They mention that experts notice meaningful patterns, they have much content knowledge and can retrieve that information using little cognitive effort. Experts are flexible when they deal with new situations. In other words, a vast majority of experts throughout their careers, understand how to apply new information and can teach it to others using the knowledge that they already have. On the other hand, novices expand their ideas of thinking through memorizing, recalling, and retrieving lots of information (Bransford et. al., 2000). Once novices have learned the information, they are able to retrieve that information later on as it is understood. Through exploring this information, the novice becomes an expert once they learn and process the information. To learn more about the difference between novices and experts, please read my full essay here.

References:

Bransford, J.D., Brown, A.L., & Cocking, R.R. (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, Experience, and school. National Academy Press. http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309070368