This is all about:

Fake Learning vs. Real learning

(real money)

(fake money)

http://www.anonymousartofrevolution.com/2012/10/real-money-vs-fake-money.html

Fake Learning

• Too often happens in formal schooling

• Students not really engaged

• Take lecture notes without comprehension

• Fail to ask questions

• Cram for a test by relying on memorization

• Ask: What‟s going to be on the test?

• Ask: What formulas do I need to

memorize?

Real Learning

• Involves really understanding, often

accompanied by flashes of insight (Aha!)

• No need to cram for a test (instead get aa good

nights sleep)

• Learning stays with the learner for a long time

• Learning is in a form that can be used creatively

and encourages critical thinking

• This slide show is about explaining and

helping to achieve the insight moment

Understanding Through Insight

Capitalizing on Michael Polanyi‟s

Tacit Theory of Knowledge

What does it mean

To “Understand” Something?

• Generally we recognize when we

understand something…..or don’t!

• We also know how hard it can be to arrive

at that understanding.

• We have also experienced the difficulty of

explaining that understanding to someone

else.

Getting to The “Aha!”

• Why is this so HARD to do?

• Seems to take an uncontrollable

amount of time

Success occurs in a flash

It‟s called INSIGHT

INSIGHT is a key topic among some recent and

deservedly popular books like:

www.metaphonia.com

Unconscious Snap Judgment's

Malcolm Gladwell

Little, Brown and Company

2005

Intelligence of the Unconscious

Gerd Gigenrenzer

Penguin Books

2007

Secret Lives of the Brain

David Eagleman

Vintage Books

Random House

2011

The Cognitive Snap

David Perkins

Understanding the Problem of

“Understanding”

Using Michael Polanyi‟s

TACIT THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE

Ted Spickler: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ted-spickler/7/160/39b

www.tacitknowledge.org

This presentation is about:

Polanyi began his theory with

“Awareness”

• He claimed there are two different ways

that we can be aware of something.

• 1. Focal

• 2. Subsidiary

Lets work with a Simple example:

• The task:

• Using a hammer to pound a nail into wood

1. Focal Awareness

• It‟s obvious:

• It‟s what you pay mindful attention too.

• It absorbs your short term memory.

• It‟s what we mean by “paying attention”.

• You have a focal awareness of the

hammer head hitting the nail.

2. Subsidiary Awareness

• (This is harder to understand).

• It‟s a collection of awareness's that float

vaguely around in the mental background.

• It encompasses all the associated details

of the “thing” your mind is working onincluding the sense of your

fingers gripping the hammer handle, and wrist wrist

and wrist motions

as well as arm motions.

Polanyi called these elements “Subsidiary Particulars”

The Structure of Tacit Knowledge

• We say that we rely on a subsidiary

awareness of the various subsidiary

particulars in order to aim focal attention to

that to which all the particulars “point”.

• Regarding the hammer: We rely on a subsidiary

awareness of various muscular movements in

order to have a focal awareness of the hammer

head hitting the nail.

HUH?

• Any complex entity has “subsidiary

particulars”

• These must all be kept in your mind (at the

same time) in the unconscious

background.

• They all converge in a holistic manner to

direct your focal attention to something

bigger and beyond any of the particulars.

• This process is called “Forming a Tacit

Integration”.

Another Example: Riding a Bike

• Try riding a bike with your attention focused on your hands gripping the handlebars. What will happen?

• Suppose you needed to calculate moments of inertia to stay upright?

• You rely on a tacit knowing of all the subsidiary particulars needed to ride a bike in order to „focally attend to” where you are going!

Can you Teach the Tacit

Integration?

• Is there a book that, once studied, allows

you to jump on a bike and ride off?

• Is there a book that, once read, allows you

to play a recorder with full musical

inflection?

• Is there a set of logical instructions

which can take you step by step to the

promised land of any integrated

understanding?

NO

The Tacit Integration is a

Personal Creative Act.

It belongs to You

Tacit Knowledge

“We know more than we can tell”

Michael Polanyi: THE TACIT DIMENSION

Understanding

• This process is applicable to intellectual endeavors, like understanding something rather complex.

• To say we understand an idea we need to have all the relevant “subsidiary particulars” floating around in the mind so they can all work tacitly together directing our focal attention to the idea to which they contribute.

Expectations:

• Students expect teachers to simply explain

the hard thing (or they expect to read

about it in a good book) and then the hard

thing becomes clear.

• Teachers expect (want) students to listen

to their brilliant explanation and (without

taking excessive amounts of time)

recognize that they understand it!

Learning Reality

• Teachers explain until their lips bleed and

nothing happens.

• Students read the text……get

confused…and nothing happens.

• Everyone is frustrated.

• Understanding only happens when the

tacit integration occurs

Eventually…….

• If all sides stick to the program and keep

working, the approach to understanding

often does take place.

• Might be accompanied with an exultant

sense of “Eureka”!

• Both teachers and students can be excited

by that “Aha!” moment!

UNDERSTANDING

• When you really understand something it‟s

deeply embedded into your “mind stuff”.

• In fact so deep that you are not able to

fully articulate what it is that you know!

• Which means, as teachers, we are stuck

with a serious problem:

• We know some stuff that we cannot tell!

INSIGHT

• This is the hard part.

• Making that “tacit integration” so all the

pieces fit together hence allowing the mind

to “see” the whole thing.

• It‟s called “understanding”

• Before that moment occurs we exist in a

no-mans-land of confusion and uncertainty

and stress because…..

We misunderstand the

confusion and feel

like an

Idiot

Forming the Tacit Integration

• Is hard.

• It Isn‟t done by your friend

• It Isn‟t done by the book

• It Isn‟t even done by the teacher

• You cannot FORCE it

It‟s Gotta be done by

YOU

ALL BY YOURSELF!

Nobody can tell you directly how to

just do it

• The tacit integration is not self

observable.

• You cannot make it happen through

conscious force of will.

• It is utterly unpredictable

• Cannot happen by the clock

• Yet it is necessary to finally “understand”

what it is that you are trying to understand.

When the Magic Occurs

• The moment tacit integration occurs is the

“light bulb” moment….the “Aha!” moment…..the

exultant sense of release when we feel that we

“got it!”

• Suddenly all those swirling-around subsidiary

particulars integrate together in the mind to form

the relationship that throws your mind focally to

the end product:

the THING that you now

UNDERSTAND!

Deriving Teaching Methodology from The

Tacit Theory of Knowledge

• This is why it takes time to finally understand something.

• It also explains why some folks “get it” sooner than others:

– It depends on your “having” all the subsidiary particulars floating around in your mind.

– Then being able to stick them together to form the tacit integration.

– Remember the harsh fact: no outsider can make the integration happen.

The Nature of Tacit Knowledge

• If you direct your focal attention to any one

of the subsidiary particulars, you lose the

“tacit integration” of those particulars into a

focal awareness of the desired result

(such as hammering a nail).

• So when hammering a nail do not look

closely at your wrist, you must

“get out of the way”

of your body.

FAKE LEARNING VS. REAL

LEARNING

It‟s the difference between

Learning to Understand

• When trying to understand something new we need to gather up all the necessary subsidiary particulars.

• Get them jostling inside the mind

• Get them working together in a subsidiarymanner.

• Eliminate errors and misconceptions…..

• Then they can form a “tacit integration” hence pointing our mind to the “whole” to which they contribute.

It’s a CREATIVE ACT!

• Don‟t we usually think of teaching as explaining something (first discovered by some old dead guy) to a student such that they “get it”?

• But forming a tacit integration is a strictly personal event that is highly creative.

• So, It‟s more like guiding the student to the cliff face and then waiting for them to

JUMP!

The Moment of Tacit Integration

INSIGHT

Ted Spickler is a retired college

professor and corporate trainer.

Currently working on a book about

tacit knowledge and how to improve

educational outcomes by using Polanyi’s

Theory to generate the real learning that comes from the insight moment

Link to Ted’s LinkedIn page:

Link to Ted’s webpage:

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ted-

spickler/7/160/39b

http://www.tacitknowledge.org/

Some Useful Sources

• Personal Knowledge Michael Polanyi:

University of Chicago Press 1958, 1962.

• The Tacit Dimension Michael Polanyi: Anchor

Books 1967

• Meaning Michael Polanyi Harry Prosch: University of

Chicago Press 1975

• Tacit and Explicit Knowledge Harry Collins:

University of Chicago Press: 2010

• Implicit Learning and Tacit Knowledge Arthur Reber: Oxford University Press 1993