Comparison of Novice and Expert And Why Games Can Help.

Looking through my old “Learning and Instruction:Theory into Practice” book by Margaret Gredler, written in 1997, I came across an interesting comparison of novice vs. expert thinking (page 188).

Novice
Knowledge structures are organized around the main phenomena in a domain.

Expert
Knowledge structures of experts represent phenomena in the domain in relation to higher-order principles. Additionally, knowledge is organized in the form of a problem schema that includes procedures for solving relevant problems.

What this means?
In Physics, a novice organizes knowledge around the behavior of objects on inclined planes while an expert arranges knowledge around higher-order principles like Newton’s laws of force. A novice has knowledge of learning tactics (create a mnemonic) while an expert has knowledge about metacognition. When an expert views a problem, they are able to see both the problem set and possible procedures for solving the problem almost simultaneously.

Teaching Implications
Teach novice learners the higher-order thinking skills around concepts and ideas–teach them the behavior of systems and not just the behavior of individual items within the system. (hint, simulations and games can do this really well!)

Novice
Inefficient use of short-term and long-term memory because knowledge often is stored in unrelated items.

Expert
Efficient use of short-term and long-term memory because recall occurs in chunks of related information–patterns.

What this means?
A expert is more efficient in searching her memory because large portions of content are “chunked” for easy retrieval. For example, in a pattern recognition task with Chess, novices and experts are asked to recall the placement of pieces on a board which is shown to them in a mid-game configuration, the Chess master has access to over 50,000 configurations of Chess pieces on a board and remembers the mid-game position of pieces within the context of one of those configurations (they match the pattern to an existing pattern they already know) while a novice attempts to memorize and hold in short term memory the position of each individual piece (eventually this is unsuccessful because of the number of pieces).

Teaching Implications
Teach novices how to recognize patterns (hint, games do this really well!)