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Tacit knowledge is more important than deliberate practice

commoncog.com

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Re: Tacit knowledge is more important than deliberate practice

#3
I'm sorry, I was really into the whole Deliberate practice thing and then I read this and thought "Oh no, did I have it all wrong?"

So I read the book he quoted - "Source of Power". And you know what? It has a tremendous overlap with Deliberate Practice.

The proponents of Deliberate Practice never claim to "just do it over and over" - you have to have background knowledge, a teacher/coach, etc... the tacit knowledge. Part of it is given to you and part of it is something that you're put into a position to experience for yourself.

It seems the "divide" is overstated.

Re: Tacit knowledge is more important than deliberate practice

#5
IMO Tacit knowledge is what we used to call judgement.

Judgement is basically knowing a bunch of things but having a good idea of which things are more important than others, and especially knowing which things are worth spending time on any which aren't.

It's like when I see someone talking about financial options and they put everything on the board at once: what are puts and calls, what's an iron butterfly and other strategies, do they need to know the payoff diagram, what about black scholes, what are the Greeks, when should I exercise, and so on. They are all things that a professional option trader knows, but when you're a pro you reduce your cognitive load because you know what actually matters and you are not juggling all these concepts at the same time.

It's also the source of frustration when interviewing. Say you've written CPP for many years, you're probably not prepared to answer questions on all corners of the language, even though you're an expert in some sense. Someone relatively newer might be better at that task, because they're thinking a lot about everything, including things they haven't decided are unimportant yet.

Re: Tacit knowledge is more important than deliberate practice

#6

IMO Tacit knowledge is what we used to call judgement. Judgement is basically knowing a bunch of things but having a good idea of which things are more important than others, and especially knowing which things are worth spending time on any which aren't. It's like when I see someone talking about financial options and they put everything on the board at once: what are puts and calls, what's an iron butterfly and oth…

[deleted]

Re: Tacit knowledge is more important than deliberate practice

#7

IMO Tacit knowledge is what we used to call judgement. Judgement is basically knowing a bunch of things but having a good idea of which things are more important than others, and especially knowing which things are worth spending time on any which aren't. It's like when I see someone talking about financial options and they put everything on the board at once: what are puts and calls, what's an iron butterfly and oth…

Likewise, you can be very good at fixing things without knowing what every single tool in your toolbox is even for. In fact, sometimes not knowing is an advantage -- you might use something in a way that was never intended that ends up solving a problem.

Re: Tacit knowledge is more important than deliberate practice

#8
post #3

I'm sorry, I was really into the whole Deliberate practice thing and then I read this and thought "Oh no, did I have it all wrong?" So I read the book he quoted - "Source of Power". And you know what? It has a tremendous overlap with Deliberate Practice. The proponents of Deliberate Practice never claim to "just do it over and over" - you have to have background knowledge, a teacher/coach, etc... the tacit knowledge.…

Indeed - after the long build up, the "reveal" was distinctly underwhelming. Arguments against a straw man are only persuasive if no-one notices that your foil is a straw man.

Re: Tacit knowledge is more important than deliberate practice

#9
WRT teaching people how to ride vehicles: I have taught a few people to ride a motorcycle and have myself been through a few courses.

What I found works best is a ~50-50 combination of verbal explanation of important know-hows(bike moves where you are looking, don't stare at the speedometer/front fork, look through the turn) and preparing the student to learn the tacit component on their own (counter steering is spooky action at a distance, just make it feel right and pay attention to how the bike reacts to the movements of the body)

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