Research Journal 10

From the National Research Council’s “How Experts Differ from Novices” we learn what the difference is between being considered an expert and being considered a novice. Experts are individuals who have gained a certain amount of knowledge in a specific area. Experts are able to store this knowledge in their short-term memory in “chunks”. These chunks contain familiar patterns that make it easier to retain and recall the information stored in the short-term memory. Novices are individuals who are inexperienced in a certain field and have not acquired the “chunking strategy” (33).  The article goes further to define experts by the following characteristics: they notice features and meaningful patterns, they have acquired a great deal of content knowledge that is organized in ways that reflect deep understanding, their knowledge reflects context of applicability. Are able to retrieve important aspects of knowledge with little effort, know their disciplines thoroughly does not mean they can teach it, and have varying levels of flexibility in their approach to new situations” (31).  The article goes on to give various examples in different fields of how experts behave against novices. One difference noted in certain examples was that experts’ thought process was centered around the big ideas while the novices focused on the more so on memorizing things and recalling them. Also experts “know more” in the sense that they have more “conceptual chunks” and also a better way of getting the information from the chunks than novices. In my field I know that physicians use various means of communication that involve writing, although most do not require an expertise in writing. I need to know the specific forms of written communication that they use and how it influences the medical field. From what I have learned about experts it would seem that physicians would have conceptual knowledge of the big ideas and are able to recall that knowledge when necessary. As far as my own expertise in writing I feel as though I acquire more knowledge chunks the more I use the skill. I need to learn how to utilize the big ideas and retrieve them when the occasion calls for it. I have learned that in order for this to happen I need to gain more “chunks” and learn how to organize them in such a way that I can use them in effective ways.