A novice? An expert? Is there a difference?

What is the difference between a novice and an expert? On the surface it seems like a fairly simple question to answer. A novice is a person who is an amateur of sorts, only a minimal level of knowledge on a subject. An expert is someone who has a vast amount of knowledge of a subject, someone who knows more than the average person. Question answered. Not totally, there is more that needs to be said. The amount of knowledge that each has is certainly part of the difference between the two but knowledge acquisition and retrieval are two additional key points.
As an example, a history teacher is an expert; a student in a history class is a novice. At some point in the past, the history teacher was a student. Not all students become history teachers. A choice must be made on the part of the person to engage in further learning of a subject. I would suggest that most students in a history class are involved in task-conscious or acquisition learning. They attend class, do what is asked of them and are learning in a general way during the class. A student, who aspires to become a history teacher, chooses to move from novice to expert thereby engaging in learning-conscious or formalized learning. The kind of learning that is educative. So an expert has a desire to learn more information about a specific subject and sets out to actively “learn” more. I must mention that not all experts are effective teachers. They sometimes forget what it is like to be in a student’s shoes.
The retrieval of knowledge also sets experts apart from novices. Novices tend to have general knowledge, less on a specific subject. Experts have vast amounts of knowledge in a particular area. Their knowledge in not just a list of facts but it is information organized around “big ideas.” This organization helps experts to retrieve knowledge in a more fluent and automatic way. They think through problems differently because of the way their brains organize the information.

I consider myself an expert in certain areas of the field in which I teach. The one area that I am a novice in is details and specifications of electronic media equipment. I work with someone who is an expert. He could be the living illustration for how an expert retrieves information. When I ask him a question, there is a long pause, gears turn, furnaces ignite, you can almost see smoke from his ears and finally, an answer to my question, the perfect answer, the one I really needed. Would my colleague be a good teacher because he is an “expert?” No, he would not. His knowledge and my ability to tap that knowledge help ME to be an effective teacher.

I think there is a topic idea here for a future blog . . . . . How can Experts and Novices work together to create effective methods of teaching and learning?