Experts and Novices

One of the examples used in chapter 2 of How People Learn compared the way expert chess plaers approach the game differently than novice players (Bransford, J., 2000, p.22). As a skilled novice chess player who has played (and lost) to expert players, I found this example particularly apt and useful. One of the experts I met years ago told me that the difference between a beginner (he used the term "fish") and a master player is "what he sees." I believe a more accurate way to phrase it would be "what he looks at and knows not to bother looking at."

Bransford discusses the way expert and novice chess players will assess the same amount of information, but with the crucial difference that the expert rules out many lines of thought early on, while the novice looks at all options without being able to quickly determine which has value. The novice spends a lot of mental energy assessing pathways that the expert can see at a glance as dead ends. The expert recognizes patterns in the subject matter, in this case chess, as a result of practice, familiarity, and reflection on the material in such a way that allows them to identify general principles.

The example of the two teachers teaching Hamlet is an excellent demonstration of how awareness of the differences between novices and experts can be applied to the classroom (p. 34). The first teacher approached the class assuming the students were as expert as he; I was bored to the point of suffering just reading the description of how he presented the material. The second teacher approached the class on the basis that they were probably not experts in Shakespeare, but they were experts in the realm of their own emotions. By giving them a personal context around which to organize the material, he helped them begin the process of finding general principles in the material. I'm hesitant to assume that the latter teacher was more effective on the basis of this reading alone, but I would be very surprised if he were not.


Bransford, J. (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.