Knowledge and Expertise

Hello fellow EDU654ers!

A foreword: This is my first time studying externally and I have to admit, I am not feeling very confident about it all. If you’re anything like me, you may feel like you have no idea if you’re on the right track with these blog post summaries and there are perhaps large gaps in your own knowledge and expertise! But anyway, here goes my first blog post:

“Knowledge and expertise.”

The need for graduates in knowledge-intensive organisations to be self-sufficient, life-long personal and professional learners is a recurring theme throughout the readings. This requires “intelligence”, defined as the mental ability to learn and adapt. It also encompasses the ability to form, shape and select their environmental contexts. Of course, academic intelligence is required for memory and analytical skills. However, I believe other attributes and forms of intelligence that are not so easily measured are also vital – creative, practical and social/communication intelligence and skills. As stated in Candy’s article, graduates must have disciplined inquiry, be able to apply their knowledge to problem solving, and must bear insights and explain their knowledge, thus also serving the community.

It is the responsibility of universities to provide the framework to equip graduates with these attributes – i.e. the skills and attitudes to continue life-long learning. They are no longer just "producers and disseminators of knowledge" – they have vital social functions and leadership roles. Like other knowledge-intensive settings, the boundaries have “blurred,” and universities have to collaborate with business, industry and other institutions to remain on this high platform.

Intelligence

Following the readings and a quick Google search, my understanding is that fluid intelligence is the ability to solve new problems, to reason, identify patterns and use logic, independent of any past knowledge. This tends to decrease with age. Crystallised intelligence is the ability to use prior learned knowledge and experience. This often increases with age, especially as our experience expands, and we learn to compensate for lost abilities.

There is also a clear distinction between practical and academic intelligence. Academic intelligence is more abstract and revolves around theoretical tasks. Practical intelligence revolves around efficient and organised real-life everyday tasks and situations. It includes the ability to form relationships and social networks. Features of practical intelligence, as stated in the readings, include flexibility, domains specific knowledge (expertise), effort saving strategies, incorporation of the external environment into problem solving and the ability to reformulate and redefine problems. In terms of education, more practical learners who may not perform well in conventional testing can be taught in ways that allow their practical intelligence to be utilised, and this has shown to result in better performance.

We must keep in mind that intelligence is relevant to each cultural/environmental context, and that people consequently shape and choose their environment. Thus, what one considers intelligent in one context is not always intelligent in another, and people’s intelligence may appear different across settings. The “mental processes” of intelligence gives rise to different behaviours depending on context (including one’s motivation, abilities or interest to apply behaviours). The issue here is that we tend to evaluate people on the resulting behaviour rather than the mental process, and draw conclusions from these. However, it is this mental process that signals intelligence, and this are common across contexts. Another problem revolves around testing of intelligence, as learners can appear intelligent if have same criteria as a test,  which is determined by culture and values (what Sternberg called a “closed system”).

Expertise

An expert is someone that has the practical intelligence in a particular domain/field of work or study. I believe the main basis for developing expertise is TIME (often a life-time) and experience in that field, thus having an understanding (creating and applying knowledge), rather than just academic intelligence and IQ. The Understanding Adult Learners text states that expertise features a superior memory, deeper problem solving skills and analysis, and self development, but ONLY in that particular domain.

This expertise progresses to wisdom  - defined as a “high level peak form of expertise” – a positive aspect of ageing and experience. Hence development in adulthood is vital (including the use of crystallised intelligence), and it is known that cognitive development continues into adulthood, with ongoing constant growth and change and learning desires.

Candy’s concluding statement

"universities are needed more now than ever, because, in a world dominated by knowledge, they represent knowledge work at its highest”

In my own area of expertise (the veterinary industry) universities are, in many cases, the forefront of research and development, often leading by example the gold-standard of knowledge and practice in the field (= Scholarship of Research). They work closely with/for local small business, often as referral centers or sources of knowledge/information/continuing education for veterinarians out in the field, i.e. those with “real-world” problems (= Scholarship of Application).

Graduates are expected to be competent clinicians on their first day out, so the development of knowledge-worker attributes is key, with requirements in life-long learning and a climate of inquiry as an expectation. Vets also become a form of teachers themselves (= Scholarship of Teaching). 

The vet industry is closely linked to those of other medical professions, global public and human health, pharmacological companies, food animal production with economic implications, etc. Thus collaboration with these industries is vital (i.e that blurring of boundaries). The knowledge taught in university is often developed in/by such industries (= Scholarship of Integration).

Thanks guys, I hope you've enjoyed reading my summary of the first 3 readings :)

Julia