Learning of novices and experts

I graduated from the BCIT Medical Radiography Technology Program in 1997.  This means that very soon I will have been practicing x-ray for twenty years.  Quite frankly it’s hard to remember a time when I didn’t know how to do x-ray simply because I now have many years of experience under my belt!  Don’t get me wrong, I recollect with striking clarity those anxiety filled early days of being a student and a new grad and feeling very unsure of myself!!    

I was reading in the textbook on page nineteen about differences between learning of novices and experts.  It talks about how the expert quickly grasps new information in usable form because there are numerous connections to existing knowledge.  The novice, on the other hand, learns more slowly not because they are less intelligent but simply because, “there are no hooks on which to hang the new information, no way to organize it”.

I was working at the hospital today with a novice student.  She was slowly and methodically working away on an x-ray for a patient who was in a great deal of discomfort.  At one point the student said, “I’m just not fast enough, someone should take over for me so that this can be completed more quickly.”   The patient was tolerating the procedure well and aware that she was a student and needed more time to perform the task.  I told her to carry on, that she was nearly done and that she was getting great pictures.  In the back of my head I was thinking, your brain is busy growing dendrites right now girl, the next time you do this your brain will have an existing network and you will be more capable and on the path to mastering this task!!  I made a mental note to apply this same line of reasoning to myself the next time I am learning a task and feeling less than competent.  What a great perspective from which to view learning!