On 19 Dec 99, at 16:28, Fred Nickols wrote:
> Robert writes...
>
> >To me it's clear the power lies with making the tacit knowledge explicit
> >for one reason - it can then be shared. I don't dichotomize it since one
> >can become the other and often does.
>
> I am confident that tacit knowledge can be communicated or transferred or
> shared and that it can be acquired -- both without making it explicit,
> that is, without articulating it.
Actually, I hadn't thought of that, but this is obviously true, now that
you have brought it to our attention, and of course, it's the basis of
modelling and observational learning. Interestingly enough, though, when
one is teaching this way, the learning increases radically when what is
observed is also accompanied by a cueing process of focussing attention to
particular parts of a performance - in other words using explicit
knowledge to focus learners.
> I am less confident that tacit knowledge can be articulated or made
> explicit; indeed, by definition, tacit knowledge refers to the kind we
> can't articulate (as in Polanyi's "We know more than we can tell").
My point here, though is that it isn't a very useful distinction for
teaching and learning. And it becomes a definitional problem rather than a
learning problem. We break down our "expert" actions or learning that is
tacit all the time when we teach. If that reality doesn't fit the
definition, then one has to question whether the definition is accurate.
> I am also confident that there is much unarticulated knowledge that, with
> assistance, can be articulated, as is the case with an analyst who works
> closely with an expert performer -- but I don't view that activity as
> making tacit knowledge explicit. I view it as articulating that which can
> be articulated but hasn't. I tend to use "implicit" as the label for the
> kind of knowledge that can be articulated but hasn't.
Ok. Again, I'm not sure that relying solely on Polanyi and not looking at
the huge amounts of psychology is a good perspective on this.
> Perhaps, Robert, you can give us an example of tacit knowledge made
> explicit -- keeping in mind, of course, that tacit knowledge is the kind
> that can't be articulated. --
Ok, well you got me there. Here we are. We start with a poor definition,
then try to cram reality into it. Not my cup of tea.
Not my concept.
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