divein coaching

Expert education

02 August 2013

I have heard a number of times that experts do not need structured learning environments, all they need is freedom to explore. While I certainly agree with the freedom bit, I think that the portion on not needing structured learning environments is plain wrong. Here is why:

  1. An expert has a focus in one area, but to innovate experts will often, if not always, have to go outside of their domains of expertise. At the boundaries with another discipline every expert becomes a novice. This is what Gallison calls a trading zone, or a place of exchange with people from other fields. I would call this horizontal expansion.

  2. Within their field of expertise, experts need to be fed with problems at the edge of their current level of expertise so that they can be expanding their expertise to a deeper and deeper level. The problem is that a sophisticated structure is required in order to get to these highly refined problems that are at a level that can push the experts skills to the next level. These are called "ladder environments," a term I learned from Bob Eberlein called it a ladder since there is a group of novices or mid-level experts working with a wide range of projects while solving the easier problems and only taking to the expert the most complicated cases. I would call this vertical expansion.

In sum, the statement that experts do not require a structured learning environment is an urban legend, but they do require a *different type of environment.

by Ricardo Pietrobon

About Me

My name is Ricardo Pietrobon and I am interested in big data and situated cognition applied to immersive distance education.