Developing (Learning) Skills - 1
What are skills and how do they differ so significantly from knowledge?
THE STORY SO FAR
In the last post we looked at how knowledge learning happens across the four learning states of ‘new’. ‘consolidating’, ‘treading water’ and ‘drowning’. In the post before that we looked at what knowledge is and how almost all knowledge shares eight characteristics.
In this post, we are going to look at what skills are and see just how much they differ from knowledge. (The answer is ‘A lot’.) It’s a compare and contrast post that will become really important when we set out to look for learning in our classrooms and workspaces.
HERE WE GO
What do we mean by skills?
Knowledge learning is about factual information that we know. The starter sentence that identifies all of our knowledge learning is: ‘I know that…’.
Skills learning is about learning things that we are able to do. The starter sentence that identifies all of our skills learning is: ‘I am able to…’. Every time we begin a sentence or a thought like this we are talking about our skills. Here’s some examples:
I am able to tie my shoelaces. I am able to talk to someone at a party I’ve not met before. I am able to repair a puncture in my bike tyre. I am able to do long multiplication in my head. I am able to write a poem. I am able to distinguish between ‘plot’ and ‘theme’ when I read a novel. I am able to measure accurately. I am able to see connections between different pieces of information. I am able to read music. I am able to produce a very, very quiet note on the flute. I am able to bake a soufflé. I am able to present to an audience convincingly. I am able to put the opposite case to something I actually support; I am able to research information. I am able to tell the difference between reliable and unreliable sources. I am able to write research proposals. I am able to make complicated things simple for others. I am able to perform a somersault on the balance beam. I am able to….
You get the picture. All of these are different but they are all skills. They all refer to things we are, potentially, able to do.
So, what are the characteristics of skills that cause skills to be learned, taught and assessed very differently from knowledge and, as we will soon see, understanding?
First, skills are not as ‘true’ as knowledge.
‘I am able to ride a bike’, says 4 year-old pre-schooler Ella.
‘I am able to ride a bike’ says 19 year-old trainee architect, Simeon.
‘I am able to ride a bike’ says 23 year-old Tour de France winner, Egan Bernal.
All three people are making the same statement about an ability they have. For now, let’s assume that no-one is lying to us and that all three are telling us something that is ‘true’. Immediately, though, because we know something about who has said each sentence, we sense that all three bike riders will be at a different place in their ability to ride a bike. Even if we didn’t know anything about each of the three people who had told us that they could each ride a bike, we might still have imagined differences in our minds about their bike riding abilities. Whereas, of course, if the same three people told us they knew the capital of the UK, we would have imagined similarity.
Skills are variable in action. Knowledge isn’t. That’s a big difference.
Second, unlike knowledge, which reveals what we know, skills are descriptors of what it is to be something.
A couple of posts ago, we described knowledge as a foundation of learning. That’s true. We have to know some important facts. But skills are equally, if not more, important because they are at the heart of what it is to be something.
Imagine your daughter telling you at the beginning of a school year that she has music class every week. Each week you ask her how her music lessons are going. Each week she says that she learned the names of some composers and their music, learned the names of the notes on a sheet of music and so on. What we know from the previous posts is that she has been having knowledge lessons about music. She has been learning facts that she can be quickly tested on. There’s nothing wrong in that. Some knowledge is important.
Quite possibly, though, you’ll soon begin to ask her ‘Are you going to learn an instrument this year?’; ‘Do you play anything in music lessons?; ‘Did you get to audition for the band or orchestra?’ ‘Do you sing together?’ The moment you ask these questions, you are wondering when skills learning will begin. If you are like me, you don’t just want music knowledge, you want music skills. You want your daughter to be able to do something musical. It’s the being able to, her skills, that will eventually define her as a musician. (When we describe someone as a great musician, we are talking more about their musical skills than their musical knowledge.)
Almost every school subject (actually, almost everything we learn) is the same. It’s crazy to think of physical education without being able to do a range of activities; to think of art without being able to use different media to produce something. This is obvious. But it’s equally crazy to think about science without being able to carry out experiments; to think of literature without being able to analyse what you are reading; to think about mathematics without being able to carry out calculations; to think about philosophy without being able to deconstruct complex arguments and so on.
It’s crazy, too, to think of someone as being successful in life without being able to form relationships, without being able to be on their own, without being able to negotiate and so on.
Skills are the difference between knowing music and being a musician; knowing science and being a scientist; knowing art and being an artist; knowing how to negotiate and being able to. Skills are the essential evidence that you are something. Knowledge isn’t.
Third, unlike knowledge, skills are relatively stable and relatively few in number.
Remember when we said that knowledge is continually expanding? Remember my best friend’s stepson and his 10 year-year research project into the life of the fruit fly? The number of facts is expanding rapidly, day after day, month after month.
Skills aren’t like that.
It’s true that there are lots of skills. Each discipline has its own set. But within each discipline, skills are significantly fewer in number than knowledge facts, are remarkably stable and remarkably long lasting.
Imagine an18th century scientist, somehow suddenly brought back to life in a 21st century laboratory. Immediately, she would be at a loss to know what the equipment was that the scientists were using.
For a while, it wouldn’t get any easier for her. As she began to speak to her new colleagues, the 21st century scientists would be talking about huge amounts of new knowledge that had been uncovered in the time since she was alive. Much of it would seem very odd to her until she learned it for herself, little by little.
But, after a while, as she began to observe the 21st century scientists in their laboratory and listened to them talking about how their work was going, about what they were able to do, she would quickly become more relaxed. What the scientists were doing, the skills they were actively using, would be remarkably familiar to her.
She and they would both have the ability to identify issues for exploration. They both would be able to observe things closely. They both would be able to measure and record what they see. They both would be able to devise questions about what they see happening. They both would be able to hypothesise about what might happen if they change one or more variables. They both would be able to repeat and check their investigations to make sure their results are constant. They both would be able to collaborate - sometimes willingly and sometimes not so willingly - with other scientists to share their ideas and evidence. They both would be able to review the work of other scientists and have other scientists review their work.
These eight skills are at the heart of being a scientist. They were at the heart of being a scientist in the 18th century and they are at the heart of being a scientist in the 21st century. They are unlikely to change any time soon. Unlike scientific knowledge, scientific skills haven’t changed much at all.
I’ve used an 18th century scientist here. But I could just have easily used an artist, a novelist, a musician, a potter, a mathematician, a politician and more. The skills that are at the heart of what each is able to do are, like those of scientists, relatively few in number and mostly stable over time.
Fourth, unlike knowledge, skills have to be assessed developmentally and in action
When our 4 year-old was asked whether she can ride a bike, she truthfully answered ‘Yes’; so did our 19 year-old trainee architect who goes out for a 20K ride every Sunday morning; so did our Tour de France 2019 winner who screams down a hill at 80 kilometres an hour. All of these people answered ‘Yes’ because they were asked a knowledge question, to which they are giving a factual answer. But when they are asked a skills question their answers are going to be different, for two reasons.
First, because we are going to ask them to demonstrate what they say they are able to do. We want to assess their bike riding ability not by listening to them answering ‘Yes’ but by watching them actually ride a bike. Assessing skills isn’t done by answering a quick question; it’s done by our abilities being made visible. Assessing skills is to see them in action.
The second reason is because the judgement we make about what they are able to do will not only be based on what we see but on their level of development. It’s quite sensible to say that our four year-old can ride her bike ‘well’ for a four-year old and the 23 year-old can also ride his bike ‘well’ for a 23 year-old professional rider. Both judgements make sense even though their levels of performance are very different.
This is how we assess and judge all skills, by looking at the actions and seeing if they are appropriate to different levels of development. ‘How do you think Clint played today?’ I ask my friend. ‘Not bad’, he replies. Not his best game but not his worst. He played well for his level.’ ‘What did you think of the meal I cooked?’ I ask. ‘I thought last week’s was a little better, if I’m honest. The meat was a little drier this week. But considering you’ve only just started cooking, pretty good.’ comes the reply. ‘What do you think of Sally Rooney’s new novel?’ I ask. ‘Fantastic. Her writing was equally as good as her last one. She’s a proper writer now.’ comes the reply.
We respond to all skills like this. In our minds, we use categories to make our judgements. There’s very little definitively right or wrong going on here. In schools with which we have worked, we have called these different levels ‘Beginning’, ‘Developing’ and ‘Mastering’ and we have developed B, D and M descriptors for students of different ages and stages of development and learning. Our 4 year-old bike rider may be at the beginning of the Beginning for their age, whilst our Tour de France winner may be somewhere near the upper end of Mastering as a professional rider. Both are legitimately still riding their bikes ‘well’.
Fifth, unlike knowledge, skills are always learned in context
Remember when we said that we can know the capital of, say, France without ever having been to France or even knowing what a ‘capital’ is? This is because it is possible to know things without any experience of them. Knowledge can be learned out of context.
Skills can’t.
To learn skills we have to be able to actually do something, in real time. When my wife and I learned to ski relatively late in life and before our first visit to a ski resort with a group of friends, I bought a book called ‘Learn to Ski in 48 hours’, which I read carefully. On the plane out from the UK to Colorado, I discussed with our friends (all of whom could already ski at various levels) the body position and leg movements I had ‘learned’ from the book. They were kind enough to listen to me and kind enough to - sort of - take me seriously.
Then came our first day on the snow. Even though my wife and I were both capable sports people (she more than me), we spent the first hour on the very gentlest of nursery slopes, falling over. The book had taught me knowledge; but if I wanted to learn to ski I had to be able to do it in real time on snow.
I know this sounds obvious, but: If we want to be able to knit we have to begin actually knitting; if we want to be able to write a poem we have to begin writing a poem; if we want to be able to play in the World Series we have to begin pitching or swinging the bat; if we want to be a surgeon we have at some point to start carrying out operations.
Learning skills happens in the live context of the activity of which the skills are a part. That’s why skills assessment has to take place through the observation of our abilities. Telling me you can ride a bike isn’t good enough. I have to see you ride your bike to make my judgement. This, as we shall see later, is one of the reasons why schools don’t focus on skills learning as much as they should do.
Sixth, unlike knowledge, skills learning is often very personal
If I forget or don’t make sticky the formula for Hydrogen Sulphide my ‘not learning’ is often hidden, invisible to others because I stay quiet. Anyway, I can always look it up later. It’s not going to change any time soon.
When I learn skills, though, my level of ability to be able to do things (or not) can have a significant impact on me as a person, on how I see myself and how others see me.
When I’m not able to mix foods well, choose words carefully, stay upright on the gentlest of slopes, draw a single line that looks like the outline of a face or even be able to decide how to solve a math equation, the effect is both very visible and very personal, obvious to everyone and about both me and my abilities as a cook, skier, artist or mathematician.
Because it is me that is able or unable to perform this skill, it’s my success or failure to learn that is on show. Successful or unsuccessful skills learning is very public. Because it is public, it reflects on me as a human being, because I have been the one doing something.
Many of us express a fear of public speaking or dancing in public. A few of us might want the street performer to pick us to be their assistant but more of us dread the moment the performer’s eyes meet ours and they begin to beckon us forward. What we are fearful of is what our abilities - the things we are able to do or not - will communicate about us, both to ourselves and to those who are watching.
There’s far fewer places to hide in skills learning. That lack of hiding places may cause me to look good to others and feel good in myself. That same lack of hiding places may cause me to look incapable to others and/or increase my sense of embarrassment or shame. This is why teachers and coaches need to be particularly careful in the feedback and support they give their learners.
Seventh, unlike knowledge, skills learning takes time.
Providing we have enough short and sharp repeated experiences of them, individual pieces of knowledge are relatively quick to learn and make sticky. What takes up time in knowledge learning is just how much knowledge there is to learn if we want to learn all of it; but it’s not the particular learning of each individual fact. That’s quite quick.
Skills are different. You will have read or heard about Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘10000 hours’ idea about learning. He talks about how the Beatles were anything but an overnight success; it was their ’10000 hours’ in the clubs of Hamburg playing 12 hours a night for days on end that had them ready and hardwired - as musicians, as a band and as colleagues - to be able to take advantage when their big moment came. Overnight success at anything involving skills is anything but overnight if it is going to be truly sticky.
Gladwell’s ‘10000 hours’ is really about skills learning. It’s the time it might take us to progress through the new and consolidating stages of Beginning, Developing and Mastering, each of which has a different descriptor depending on whether we are four years-old or twenty-three. Unless we are freakishly gifted (and a small number of the human race are freakishly gifted in different areas - see the Joey Alexander video in a recent Thursday Looking for Learning special) skills learning takes stretch time. The horrible, grating sounds of the first few months (not hours) of violin playing - or its equivalent - are experienced by pretty much everyone who learns an instrument. Most first-time published authors have unpublished, previously-refused manuscripts in the drawers of their desks. Most readers go through months working on the laborious process of sounding out single and multiple letter sounds, combining those sounds together and then being able to make simple meanings (and much more) before they read (if ever they do) James Joyce’s Ulysses.
Skills have a double hit around time. The first hit is the time it takes to progress through the Beginning, Developing and Mastering periods of learning. The second is the time needed in each period to go through the new and consolidating states of each of those periods. My Spanish language learning abilities are just coming to the end of the consolidating state of the Beginning period. I think that’s where Duolingo would put me right now. I’m happy with this but I know that, after three years, there is a long, long way to go yet.
I know this sounds obvious but many of us - and many schools and curriculums - don’t give ourselves or our children the time we and they need to get better. We treat skills like knowledge and want almost instant results. We aren’t going to get them.
Eighth, skills are learned by practice and coaching.
All skills come to us through personal practice. It might be with our math teacher in the classroom, our sports coach in the gym, our music teacher at home or, especially as we move to the ‘Consolidating’stage, on our own, privately. But there’s a big difference between the learning of knowledge and the learning of skills. My teacher can show me the skill she would like me to learn, but then it’s down to me to learn it through doing. Because skills are more complex than single pieces of knowledge and take more time, there is as much chance that, depending on how things go, I will become demotivated rather than motivated or, as we have seen to be open to good feelings about myself or feelings of helplessness and shame.
The input and support from my teachers or colleagues if I am to develop my abilities is not telling, as it is with knowledge learning, but coaching. A coach is someone who reassures me that I’m on the right path, gives me time for my own practice, watches what is happening and, at the right time, steps in with some guidance. That book I bought - Learn to Ski in 48 Hours - didn’t work because it told me things (knowledge) but couldn’t coach me (skills).
IN NEXT WEEK’S POST
I said in the last post that the differences between skills and knowledge would be huge. They are.
In every single one of the descriptors we have used as our criteria, skills learning differs significantly from knowledge learning, in ways that have a significant impact on how they are learned, taught and assessed. In next week’s post, we’ll look at what skills learning looks like in each of the four states of learning - new, consolidating, treading water and drowning. As you might expect, that’s very different, too.
In the meantime, you might want to look at yourself and your learners, wherever you and they are, and see if you can clearly identify the difference between your and their knowledge learning and your and their skills learning. To help you, use the two sentences ‘I/they know that…’ and I/they am/are able to….’ to describe what you see. You might also begin to ask how well the repeated learning experiences that you and your students or colleagues are having are matched, or not, to the very different needs of knowledge and skills learning. It’s important stuff.
Thanks, as ever. See you next Monday or on Thursday if something crops up worth discussing.