How Experts Differ from
Novices
Melissa Eubank
How Experts Differ form Novices
 When
it comes to problem solving, experts
have gained a lot of knowledge that affects
what they notice.
 This knowledge also affects how they
organize, represent, and interpret
information.
How Experts Differ from Novices
6
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Principles of Expertise
Meaningful Patterns of information
Organization of Knowledge
Context and Access to Knowledge
Fluent Retrieval
Experts and Teaching
Adaptive Expertise
Meaningful Patterns of Information

“Experts notice features and meaningful patterns
of information that are not noticed by novices.”

Experience is Key
 Chunking
 Examples:

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Chess
Electronics Technicians
Physicists
Teachers
Meaningful Patterns of Information
 Experience

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Experts have seen the problem before,
therefore they can see patterns of meaningful
information.
The problem is not really a “problem”.
Because they can see the patterns of
meaningful information experts problem
solving starts at a “higher level”.
Meaningful Patterns of Information
 Chunking


Put together information into familiar patterns.
Chunking enhances short term memory.
• Example:

01110001110100101
Meaningful Patterns of Information

Chess: Masters vs. Lesser ranked chess
players.

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Chess masters were able to out play their opponents
because if the knowledge they acquired from hours
upon hours of playing chess.
Chess masters experiences lead to recognition of
meaningful chess configurations (using chunking)
which leads to the realization of the best strategy with
the most superior moves to win based on these
configurations.
Chess masters can chunk together chess pieces in a
configuration.
Meaningful Patterns of Information
 Electronics
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Technicians.
Expert electronics technicians were able to
reproduce large portions of complex circuit
diagrams after only a few SECONDS of
viewing.
Chunked several individual circuit elements
that performed the function of an amplifier.
Novices could not do this.
Being a novice in this area I hardly
understand the words!!
Meaningful Patterns of Information
 Physicists
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Mathematical Experts
Recognize problems of river currents and
problems of headwinds and tailwinds in
airplanes to all involve relative velocities.
They chunked all of these into relative velocity
problems. Only an expert physicist would be
able to do that with expert mathematical skills
would be able to do that.
Meaningful Patterns of Information

Teachers
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Expert and Novice teachers were shown a videotaped
classroom lesson and asked to talk about what they
were seeing.
Expert teachers noticed:
• Note-taking strategies of students.
• Students loosing interest in the lesson.
• That the students seem to be accelerated learners.

Novice teachers:
• Couldn’t tell what students were doing.
• Couldn’t understand what was going on.
• Said “It’s a lot to watch.”
Organization of Knowledge

“Experts have acquired a great deal of content
knowledge that is organized in ways that reflect
a deep understanding of their subject matter.”


Big Ideas guide expert thinking.
Experts understand the problem vs. novices who
just want to solve the problem.
 Examples:
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Physics
Mathematics
Adults and Children
Organization of Knowledge
 “Big


Ideas”
Experts knowledge is organized around core
concepts that guide their thinking about their
domains.
Novices are more likely to approach problems
by searching for the correct formulas. Their
knowledge is simply a list of facts and
formulas that are relevant to the domain.
Organization of Knowledge
 Understanding


the problem.
Experts want to understand what the problem
means rather than just plug in numbers in a
formula to get an answer.
By understanding the problem experts can
then explain why they used the tactics they
did to solve the problem.
Organization of Knowledge

Physics

Experts:
• Use the core concept if Newton’s 2nd Law. The sum of the
external forces equals the mass multiplied by the
acceleration. F=Ma.
• Draw Free Body Diagrams in order to see all the external
forces and get a generic formula for solving the problem.
• When looking at different problems experts group these
problems based on the major principle that could be applied
to solve.

Novices:
• Immediately plug in numbers into formulas.
• Memorize, recall and manipulate to get answers they need.
• Grouped problems together based on if the pictures looked
similar.
Organization of Knowledge
 Mathematics
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Experts want to understand the problem and
not just plug in numbers like novices.
Experts and Novices were asked to solve an
algebra word problem that is logically
impossible.
• Experts wanting to understand the problem quickly
realized that it was logically impossible
• Novices used the numbers in the problem to plug
into equations that they would use to solve it,
getting an unrealistic answer.
Organization of Knowledge
 Adults
(Experts) vs. Children (Novices)
 Adults and children were asked:

There are 26 sheep and 10 goats on a ship.
How old is the captain?
• Adults had enough expertise to realize that you do
not have enough information to solve this problem.
• Children attempted to answer this question with a
number by adding, subtracting, etc. They did not
try to understand the problem.
Context and Access to Knowledge

“Experts’ knowledge cannot be reduced to isolated facts
or propositions but, instead, reflects contexts of
applicability: that is, the knowledge is “conditionalized”
on a set of circumstances.”

Retrieving relevant knowledge
“Conditionalized”
Examples:
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Textbooks
Word Problems
Tests
Context and Access to Knowledge
 Retrieving
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relevant knowledge.
Experts know A LOT. But when they need to
solve a certain problem they don’t need all of
the information they know.
Experts do not search through all the
knowledge they know. This would be
overwhelming. Experts selectively retrieve
the relevant information they need.
Experts are GOOD at retrieving the relevant
knowledge they need to solve a problem.
Context and Access to Knowledge
 Conditionalized

Knowledge
“Conditionalized”- Knowledge includes a
specification of the contexts in which it is
useful.
• In other words, experts know when their
knowledge is useful.

Knowledge must be conditionalized in order to
be retrieved when it is needed.
• Have to know when your knowledge is useful in
order to retrieve that knowledge when it is needed
to solve a problem.
Context and Access to Knowledge
 Textbooks
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DO NOT help students to conditionalize their
knowledge. They teach laws of mathematics
but not when these laws are useful for
problem solving.
• Students have to learn when their knowledge is
useful all on their own.

Present facts and formulas, but not the
conditions in which these facts and formulas
are useful.
Context and Access to Knowledge

Word Problems
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Word problems that use the appropriate facts and
formulas help students to know when, where and why
to use the knowledge they are learning.
Example: Addition and Subtraction.
• If you have 2 apples and your friend Julie gives you 7 more
but then Charlie eats 3 of your apples. How many apples do
you have?
• Children might know how to add and subtract numbers but
the word problem will help them to know when their
knowledge is useful.
Context and Access to Knowledge

Tests
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Many ask for only facts and not when, where or why
to use those facts.
Some tests have questions that are in order of how
students learned them from the book.
• Therefore students think that they have conditionalized their
knowledge but they have really memorized in order of the
book when to use which formulas and not learned when the
formulas are actually useful.
• If these same students were to take another test with
questions presented randomly with no hint as to where the
formulas were in the book they would not do as well.
Context and Access to Knowledge

What knowledge do you have that you know
exactly when it is useful?

For example: I know how to take derivatives and
velocity is the derivative of position. So if I am
presented a velocity vs. time graph all I have to
do to find the position at a given time is to find
the area under the curve.
Fluent Retrieval

“Experts are able to flexibly retrieve important
aspects of their knowledge with little attentional
effort.”

Effortful
 Relatively effortless to automatic
 Leads to progression
 Example:
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Driving a car
Reading
Fluent Retrieval
 Effortful
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Novices
Places demands on the learner’s attention.
• Attention is being expended on remembering
instead of learning.
• If a student is trying to learn algebra and they are
not an expert in addition, then they will be giving
attention to the addition instead of learning
algebra.
Fluent Retrieval

Effortless to Automatic
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Experts
Fluency places fewer demands on their conscious
attention.
• Allows more capacity of attention on another task.
• Like the example before, now, if the student can retrieve
information on how to add effortlessly or automatically they
can focus more on learning how to solve algebraic equations.

Doesn’t mean that experts solve problems faster than
novices. Sometimes they can take longer because
they are attempting to deeply understand the
problem.
Fluent Retrieval

Driving a car.
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At first everyone starts out as Novices and they have to
consciously think about all of the moves that are associated with
driving.
•
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Checking mirrors.
Checking speed.
Radius of turn.
How hard to apply brakes and gas.
Which peddles are the brakes and gas.
Turning on your blinker when turning.
After experience however all of this becomes automatic
unconscious thought.
• People can drive while carrying on a conversation.
• Sometimes I drive from one destination to another and don’t even
remember how they got there.
Fluent Retrieval
 Progression

Fluent retrieval is very important so that
solutions can be easily retrieved from memory
and you can continuously progress onto
higher learning.
Fluent Retrieval
 Reading
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When someone starts out learning to read
they have to sound out the words, usually
syllable by syllable. It is really hard to focus
your attention on the actual material you are
reading when you have to focus on the words.
After experience, reading becomes automatic
unconscious thought and the reader focuses
on what they are actually reading.
Fluent Retrieval
 What
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knowledge do you find:
Effortful?
Effortless?
Automatic?
Experts and Teaching
 “Though
experts know their disciplines
thoroughly, this does not guarantee that
they are able to teach others.”
 Expertise
in a particular domain
 Expert teachers
 Examples:
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Hamlet
My 9th grade Biology Teacher
Experts and Teaching

Expertise in a particular domain.
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Does not guarantee that they will be good at helping
other people learn.
Can sometimes hurt teaching because experts can
forget what is easy and difficult for students to learn.
To them it all seems easy.
If they don’t have pedagogical content knowledge
then they are more likely to rely on their textbook for
how to teach their students.
• The textbook doesn’t know anything about their particular
classroom.
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Class could have different prior knowledge and not on the
same level that the book expects.
Experts and Teaching

Expert Teachers
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Know the difficulties that students are likely to face
when learning.
Good at knowing what existing knowledge their
students have so that they can make new information
meaningful.
Also good at assessing their students’ progress.
Have pedagogical content knowledge not just their
content knowledge.
• Underlies effective teaching.
Experts and Teaching

Hamlet
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Teacher 1:
• Couldn’t get into the mind set of his students.
• Made them memorize long-passages, do in-depth analyses of
soliloquies and write a paper on the importance of language in
Hamlet. (This sounds really boring to me!)
• Knew all about Hamlet, but not how to teach it to his students.
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Teacher 2:
• Knew how to get into his students heads.
• Knew all about Hamlet too, but also how to teach students.
• Asked them questions about life situations that pertained to Hamlet
before even talking about the play.
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Asked about how the students would feel about their parents splitting
due to a new man in moms life and that man might be responsible for
dads death. Then to think about what would cause them to go mad
and commit murder.
This got the students attention and then they were interested in Hamlet.
Experts and Teaching
 Ms.
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Yin
Brilliant in the field of Biology
Horrible teacher
Adaptive Expertise

“Experts have varying levels of flexibility in their
approach to new situations.”
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Artisans
Virtuosos
Metacognition
Answer-filled Experts
Accomplished Novices
Examples:
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Japanese sushi experts
Information systems designers
Adaptive Expertise
 Artisans
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“merely skilled”
Relatively routinized
Adaptive Expertise

Virtuosos
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“highly competent”
One that is flexible and more adaptable.
• Learn throughout their lifetime.
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Not only use what they have learned but are
metacognitive and continuously question their current
levels of expertise and attempt to move beyond them.
But which learning experiences lead develop
virtuosos.
• Still challenges people.
Adaptive Expertise
 Metacognition

The ability to monitor one’s current level of
understanding and decide when it is not
adequate.
• When there are limit’s of one’s current knowledge,
you must take the right steps to remedy the
situation. Learn more.
Adaptive Expertise
 Answer
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filled experts
A common assumption is that and expert is
someone who knows all the answers.
This puts restraint on new learning because
experts worry about looking incompetent
when they might need help in certain areas.
They want to be called Accomplished
Novices.
Adaptive Expertise
 Accomplished
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Novices
Skilled in many areas and proud of their
accomplishments, but they realize that they
do not know everything. They do not know
everything especially when compared to all
that is potentially knowable.
Experts being called accomplished novices
helps people feel free to continue to learn.
Adaptive Expertise
Japanese sushi experts

Artisan
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Excels in following a
fixed recipe.

Virtuoso
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Can prepare sushi
creatively.
Both can make great sushi but how they are prepared is
different.

Adaptive Expertise
Information systems designers
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Work with clients who know what they want.
Artisans
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Skilled
Use their existing expertise to do familiar tasks more efficiantly.
Tend to accept the problem and its limits as stated by their
clients.
Virtuosos
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Creative
View assignments as opportunities to explore and expand their
current level of expertise.
Consider the client’s statement of the problem a point for further
exploration.
Experts vs. Novices
 The
six principles of expertise need to be
considered simultaneously, as parts of an
overall system.
Experts vs. Novices

A=28 degrees
 Find all other angles.

Principles of
expertise?
 Are you an expert?
Experts vs. Novices



A 20-kg mass is attached to a spring with
stiffness 200 N/m. The damping constant for the
system is 140 N-sec/m. If the mass is pulled 25
cm to the right of equilibrium and given an initial
leftward velocity of 1 m/sec, when will it first
return to its equilibrium position?
What expertise do you need to solve this?
If you have that expertise, what principles of
expertise are applied?
 Are you an expert or a novice?
Experts vs. Novices
 Acceleration
of 3-kg mass problem (on
hand out).
 What
expertise?
 What principles of expertise?
 Expert or Novice?
Experts vs. Novices
 A board
was sawed into two pieces. One
piece was two-thirds as long as the whole
board and was exceeded in length by the
second piece by four feet. How long was
the board before it was cut?
 Principles
of Expertise?
Experts vs. Novices
 Puzzle:

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
5 years ago Kate was 5 times as old as her
Son. 5 years hence her age will be 8 less than
three times the corresponding age of her Son.
Find their ages.
What expertise?
Principles of expertise?
Expert?
Experts vs. Novices

First draw a table like this one below:
KATE
5 YRS AGO
5x
SON
x
PRESENT
5x + 5
x+5
5 YRS LATER
5x + 10
x + 10
Now we know that 5 years from now Kate's age will be 8 less than three times the corresponding age of her Son. So, if we add 8 to
Kate's age , 5 years from now, and make her Son's age 3 times more we will find out 'x' and PROBLEM SOLVED.
Therefore:
5x + 10 + 8 = 3(x + 10)
5x + 18 = 3x + 30
5x - 3x = 30 - 18
2x = 12
x = 12 / 2
x=6
Now Kate's Present age is 5x + 5
=5(6) + 5
= 30 + 5
= 35 YEARS
Now her Son's Present age is x + 5
=6+5
= 11 YEARS