The Kindle version costs US$18.70 which is a real bargain
compared to the hardback version at $109! Have ordered the hardcopy for the library. As yet, there is no
preview available in google books. Book review / summary also simplified as I could read on Ipad, take notes on PC and save on blogger. The summary was completed across a series of months, from initial reading while travelling in July. The bookmarking and highlighting function on the Kindle app comes into good use to mark initial points of interest and themes. At work, it was a matter of following up on the bookmarks and notes to complete the summaries of each chapter.
The
book has a focus on studying measurable situated expertise and the unravelling
of factors that promote the acquisition, maintenance and on-going
development of expertise. The myth that expertise is a result of accumulated
experience is debunked. Instead, the need for conscientious deliberate practice
is required for both novices and recognized experts to attain, maintain and
continually hone skills is required.
1) A brief history of the study of expertise is
provided in chapter one. The chapter also provides background to the rationale,
origins (a conference on expertise) and structure / approaches of the
book. The book as a whole, has a focus
on measurable performance of expertise in a range of real world work (many within a military training / leadership context) and
learning activities with the aim of understanding better, how individuals and
teams acquire and develop superior performance. Brief summaries of each of the
chapters is also provided.
Section 1 – historical overview covering challenges in the
past and contemporary efforts.
2) 20th century revolution in military
training (R. E. Chapman).
This interesting chapter, describes the
evolution of training within the United States military. In particular, the
move in the 1970s towards using forms of experiential /active learning
supported with feedback structures, to improve outcomes of military training.
Of interest is the description of the navy’s ‘top gun’ programme for combat
pilots, which improved the odds of survival of fighter pilots. The norm of two
planes shot down to one enemy plane shot down, improved in the navy’s favour to
12.5 planes for each enemy plan shot down, after the ‘top gun’ programme became
the training approach. Top gun training involved pilots training in a simulated
environment against ‘enemy planes’ that flew like and used enemy
strategies. A ‘after-action review was
then used to evaluate each pilot’s performance, confronting pilots with their
errors and forcing them to reflect on their performance.
The ‘top gun’ training programme was then
adapted to infantry training and has been adapted over the years. Findings from
the many cohorts trained through this programme include that there is a
levelling off of the learning curve after initial rapid improvement. Learning curves can be cumulative. Part task
initial learning is followed by simplified whole-task training. Then realistic
whole task training is undertaken before actual mission training is
undertaken. Skills also atrophy if they
are not being used within 2 – 3 months of training programme.
3) Developing professional expertise with a
cognitive apprenticeship (S. P. Lajoie)
Has a good overview of the cognitive
apprenticeship model as it applies to avionics troubleshooting and medical
diagnosis. Describes the use of Sherlock – a task- or job specific computer
assisted training programme / intelligent tutoring system to help avionics
technicians work through troubleshooting airplane component faults. Following
on, the concepts used have been developed further to assist medical students
and doctors to learn or revise medical diagnostics.
4) Leaderships development and assessment:
describing and rethinking the state of the art (M.D., Mumford, T.L. Friedrich,
J.J. Caughron and A.L. Antes)
Presents a model of leader cognition as an
alternative to mainly business / corporate approaches to understanding
leadership. In particular, that
leadership skills are difficult to pin down, highly contextualised and leadership
training does not guarantee performance at time of stress / greatest need (as
when things ‘turn to custard’ on the battlefield).
5) Revolutions, leaders and diagnosticians: reflections
on themes in chapters 2-4 (
E.B. Hunt)
Not just a summary but a readable critique of
the preceding three chapters. Some
historical overview also provided to help situate each chapter into time/place
so that findings are taken with caution.
Section 2 – continues with past and contemporary efforts to
design instruction, train and maintain professional performance has 4 chapters.
6) Research on past and current training in
professional domains: the emerging need for a paradigm shift (
J.J.G. VanMerrienboer and E.W. Boot). The chapter summarises the challenges presented in
present day training of professionals and discusses the role of instructional
systems design (ISD) in conjunction with technology enhanced learning
environments (TELEs) and presents implications for future practice. The context is training in the military. Provides
a good overview of ISD including social constructivist and whole-task design
models and how these no longer cope with the challenges of present day military
training demands. Also overviews of TELEs including computer-based training,
intelligent tutoring systems, dynamic visual presentations and animations,
hypertext and hypermedia, and computer simulations and virtual reality. Argues
for the need to abandon atomistic ISD and optimise TELEs towards whole-task
approaches.
7) Designing training for professionals based on
subject matter experts and cognitive task analysis (J.M. Schraagen). This
chapter provides a good overview of the actual task analysis process as applied
in instructional design (ID). Provides
discussion on both the advantages and disadvantages of task analysis
approaches. Offers the cognitive task analysis approach, using subject matter
experts as a foundation and provides a thorough explanation via case study of
how to bring about a change and convert from original ID programme to cognitive
task analysis. The example uses training in structured troubleshooting in the
training of weapons engineers in the Royal Netherlands Navy.
8) How to help professional maintain and improve
their knowledge and skills: triangulating best practises in medicine (D.A.
Davis). This chapter is based on a study of medical practitioners need to
maintain currency in practice. In the past, the main models have been the
update, competence and performance models. The Currency of Credit currently
used is critiqued. A new model based on professional self-assessment,
competency assessment and performance assessment is proposed.
9) Advances in specifying what is to be learned:
reflections on themes in chapters 6-8 (R.E. Mayer) – A couple of good tables in
this chapter (9.1 and 9.2) summarise approaches to specifying what is to be
learnt and kinds of knowledge. Need to assist specification of
compartmentalised behaviours, compartmentalised knowledge, integrated
knowledge, individualised knowledge to determine what the learner needs to know
and then determine what the learner already knows and how to teach (what the
learner does not yet know).
Section 3 has 5 chapters covering assessment and training of
skilled and expert performers in the military
10) Toward a second training revolution: promise and
pitfalls of digital experiential training (R.E. Chatham). A long but useful
chapter. The chapter is a continuation
from Chapter 2, adding in the TELE type approaches now used by the US of A
military to cope with the challenges of training personnel for modern warfare.
As Chatham writes, “everything short of war is similuation” . The chapter
provides many examples of using TEL including simulations and games. The
advantages and disadvantages of simulations and games are discussed and
examples provided. Development of simulations and games is not cheap, so it is
important to ensure the $$ lead to learning outcomes, in this case, life and
death outcomes for military personnel. Future work on ‘distributed experiential
training’ is proposed to end the chapter.
11) Evaluating pilot performance (B.T. Schreiber,W.
Bennett, Jr., C.M. Colegrove, A.M. Portrey, D.A. Greschke and H.H. Bell). Here,
there is an interesting historical overview of flight simulators. Learning to
fly, under combat conditions, provides a good example of the holistic task
analysis approach now used to ensure training is situated, experiential and
authentic. Of note is that even though flight simulators are able to gather a
range of assessment information from learner pilots, there is still a need for
an experienced instructor pilot to complete the final instructional evaluation
and make the final decision on competence / capability.
12) Contrasting submarine specialty training: sonar
and fire control (S.S. Kirshenbaum, S.L. McInnis, K.P. Correll). Two
specialities requiring different forms of skill are studied to determine the
efficacy of changes to the training approaches. The descriptions of the
specialist skills in each occupation provides examples of detailed task
analysis. The chapter details the application of the Kirkpatrick levels of
assessment framework, using four levels to assess students’ skill acquisition –
reaction, learning, behaviour, results.
13) Training complex cognitive skills: a theme based
approach to the development of battlefield skills (S.B. Shadrick and J.W.
Lussier). An interesting chapter on the importance of ensuring soldiers are
taught to think is as important as teaching them how to fight. There is good overview and discussion on the
various approaches to teaching people how to be more adaptable, flexible and
versatile – the need to attain adaptive performance and adaptive thinking.
Example is used of how the Soviets used to train chess players, not only to
learn the mechanics of chess but to be able learn the thinking strategies to ‘think like a grandmaster’. Interesting
table 13.1 on the themes of battlefield thinking adaptable to other contexts.
Also good summary of principles of deliberate practice in table 13.2. Uses the
think like a commander (TLAC) TEL simulation as an example.
14) Structuring the conditions of training to
achieve elite training programs and related themes – chapters 10-13 (R.A.
Bjork). This chapter unpacks the many concepts and ideas in the chapters in
section 3 and reports on commonalities of the approaches. Summaries of each
chapter also included.
Section 4 focuses on development of expertise and expert
conference with 7 chapters.
15) The influence of learning research on design and
use of assessment (E.L. Baker). As the
title implies, this chapter covers the implications of learning design on
assessment . The chapter begins with recognising that assessments will never be
able to capture the inherent complexity of learning. There is also a brief
overview of the history of testing including various models of learning that inform the process of testing – table
15.4. A model based assessment of learning to encompass content understanding,
problem solving, metacognition, communication and teamwork / collaboration is
proposed through learning design techniques like knowledge maps and ontologies.
All in a good overview of assessment.
16) Acquiring conceptual expertise through
modelling: the case of elementary physics (K.Vanlehn and B. Van De Sande). Uses
physics as the context for understanding how concepts are learnt and how
novices might attain misconceptions. The model assumes that conceptual
expertise includes mastery of descriptive based knowledge, applying the
knowledge to known conditions and confluences (equations learnt through
superficial understanding followed by constructing a semantic version of the
equation and eventually understanding through producing a qualitative version.
17) Teaching for expertise: problem-based methods in
medicine and other professional domains (H.P.A. Boshuizen). An important
chapter bringing the application of some of the ideas through the book, towards
ideas of how to better teach so that students are able to learn. Advocates for the need of horizontal and
vertical integration of knowledge required to attain occupational skills and
how problem based learning (PBL) may be one approach. Uses examples to explain
the advantages of PBL
18) Enhancing the development of professional
performance: implications from the study of deliberate practice (K.A. Ericsson).
This chapter provides a thorough overview of the studies from which the
deliberate practice (DP) model was derived. There is a good summary of the
rationale for the development of DP.
Application of DP to professional training and practice is also covered.
Superior performance requires the learning and integration of a range of
skills, knowledge and attributes. DP involves the selection of actions, the
monitoring of learning as the activity is practiced and control of how the
ongoing learning is progressing. All of these lead to incremental improvements
in performance.
19) It takes expertise to make expertise: some
thoughts about why and how – reflections on the themes chapter 15-18.
(J.D.Bransford and D.L. Schwartz). The four chapters on expertise are
summarised, critiqued and discussed including the both the learning and the
teaching of expert performance.
20) The value of expertise and expert performance: a
review of evidence from the military (J.D. Fletcher). In this chapter, the
various themes throughout the book are contextualised overtly to the military
learning and training context. Themes include self-assessment and self-directed
learning; deliberate practice to develop expertise; agility in expertise and
professional performance; assessment of professional growth towards attaining
expertise; the centrality of cognition in expertise; and the importance of
designing learning environments to promote expertise. Will have a go in another blog to see how
similar concept can be applied to vocational education setting.
21) Expertise in the management of people: a new
frontier for research on expert performance (S.E.F. Chapman). This chapter
explores the use of case-based instruction.
Also proposes research agenda for the future.
Overall, a book that bring together the theoretical frameworks of expertise and reports on application of various studies to range of occupations. The situated and contextual nature of learning is affirmed as is the need for novices to have guided, structured learning experiences to attain expertise in occupations requiring the deployment of a complex range of skills. Well worth the time to work through all the chapters as each brings applicable recommendations towards the improvement of vocational education curriculum development (through ID processes), structuring learning activities to maximise learning and alignment of authentic assessment activities to what is expected in real-world practice.
