Three simple charts

The final words (for now) on knowledge, skills and understanding

IN THE LAST POST

It’s been a while since we started looking at the differences between knowledge, skills and understanding. For some of you, it may have been too long; you may be right. I know that I’m guilty of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut over this sometimes.

I’m not apologising, though. Being clear about the differences helps students and teachers (and parents and others, too) to be much clearer about what is expected from them as they try to enable learning to happen. One of the reasons that teaching is so tiring is that, done well, it is the art, science and skill of re-adapting our approach to our students multiple times during each lesson or each day. But if we are not clear whether we should be ‘telling’, ‘coaching’ or ‘facilitating’ - and our students are not clear whether they should be ‘hooking’, ‘practising’ or ‘reflecting’ - the whole thing can get messy very quickly.

In this week’s post, I’m laying out three simple charts that summarise everything we have discussed over the past few weeks. They are meant to be aide-memoirs and, hopefully, will be useful as such. My apologies again for the quality of the charts on screen. Substack still can’t seem to find a way to allow simple charts to be embedded into text without them being a jpeg photo or unless they are filled with data. The chat threads are full of frustrations about this, all of which I share. Nevertheless, my love for Substack continues. Anyway…

HERE WE GO

Chart 1

This simple chart comes from an idea by Arthur Koestler. He defined a hierarchy as a top-down control system in which each level is independent of the others. Hierarchies do exist, of course, but they are not universal. He defined a holarchy as a system which is multi-directional and in which each ‘upper’ layer transcends but also includes the lower layers without leaving them behind.

This chart shows that skills transcend knowledge but also include it and that ‘understanding’ transcends both knowledge and skills but also includes both. All three, although different, are mutually interdependent. This is why arguments that ‘learning knowledge is no longer important’ don’t work. Skills without knowledge can’t exist. And so on.

Chart 2

Hopefully, this is straightforward by now. It’s the simplest graphic that sets out how knowledge, skills and understanding are learned, taught and assessed differently. Apologies for the couple of typos. I’ll correct them next time.

Chart 3

Chart 3 contains all of the key differences we have discussed over the past few posts, with the addition of a learner’s sentence that can help them cue into whether they are hooking, developing or deepening their knowledge, skills and understandings.

As ever, this is a work in progress. I’m super happy to receive any thoughts or comments that will make all of this better or clearer.

Liz Hargreaves wrote this week from India about the second of the Understanding posts to say: This post became part of our discussion in our end of year reflection meetings with leaders - what perfect timing, thank you! Providing some clarity for very busy teachers and others who want to help develop better learning is the Hedgehog concept of this Substack. So, thanks to Liz and her colleagues. If I am failing for you, please let me know.

NEXT WEEK

We’ll set up Base Camp 2 and very briefly review everything so far. We’ll then look at a definition of learning that results from all of this. That definition will form the bedrock against which we’ll be able to discuss which of the factors that affect learning help or hinder the process (or both).

Finally, a brief apology. If this post is a little lumpy this week it’s because I caught a bug last week and have had three days in bed and four without eating. The day I am putting this together is Day 6 and it’s the first day I’ve had anything like half-decent concentration. It’s humbling to think of so many people around the world who get these types of things in the worst of situations and of the many children and students who come towards learning each day with not even the very basic factors of health and energy being in place. I haven’t enjoyed this week and I can barely imagine what it must be like for them.

Have the best week possible.

Martin