Expert ... novice learners, do they know who they are?

When I started teaching adults many years ago, I did so with the assumption that (a) they wanted to learn and (b) they took a position that they were novices. Over the course of time, I have learned that not everyone wants to learn, at least not just for the sake of learning. And I have learned that learners are less willing/able and perhaps justified in taking the role of novice in a formal learning experience. For me, the shift of roles accompanied the increasing access to information that provides any or all of us to think we know something about a lot of things. Early in my career I looked at novice vs. expert learning and the processes and expectations (at that time) are very different. It occurs to me that perhaps it is useful to provide ways to help students determine their level of expertise (I don't think grades, degrees, certifications, or even portfolios truly accomplish this) and be more conscious of how we approach learning and teaching interactions given the perceptions if not truthful realities of learner expertise.

I have run across the Dreyfus Model that provides a framework for a continuum of how people think as they move along their degree of knowledge. In my recent work examining storytelling as instructional method, I found this interesting post about the ancient game of Go in which Sorin Gherman, a programmer, applies the Dreyfus Model to Go. This post interest me because Sorin uses stories to illustrate levels of expertise. In an informal conversation with a pilot a few weeks ago, I found that Southwest Airlines uses storytelling in the interview process to determine the level of expertise of potential pilots.

Oftentimes, faculty will have students reflect on what they have learned in a course, but it occurs to me that students don't get the benefit of the larger personal journey they are taking, or where they lie on a continuum of expertise. I don't believe that such continuum is empirical, measurable or finite, but after thinking about the Dreyfus model, I do think helping students see where they are in their ability to know is valuable.