Showing students ways to organize knowledge and privately comparing it to your own organizational structure

Highlights organization features

Makes connections among concepts explicit

This is when you ask for two opposite cases/information to help highlight multiple content points and shape the branching off of information for the students knowledge organization.

Example: Using ocean animals, differentiating based on reproductive capabilities, breathing, diet instead of just focusing on similarities of environment helps create a more expert knowledge organization.

Providing students with the organizational structure of the course

Sharing the organization of each lecture, lab, or discussion

Example: adding an agenda before each class on the board to walk through the flow of content and connecting new topics to old lectures to explicitly connect them.

Thorough syllabus with notes on what topics are grouped together

Experts have diverse knowledge structures in order to connect new topics to those old structures.

Novices tend to create separate knowledge structures and not connect new and old ideas, and need to learn how to connect these ideas to create a diverse structure to add to.

As novices are behind experts in terms of knowledge organization, experts can sometimes forget how to help encourage those organizations to develop.

A - A simple knowledge structure. Each segment can be seen as a separate class or topic. The learner does not draw connections between the topics. It is harder to retain knowledge. (Novice)

B - Connections are arranged in the form of a chain of associations. Can lead to difficulties if one link in the chain is broken, or if some deviation from the specified sequence is required. The more nodes linked in such a simple chain, the slower and more difficult it is on average to traverse from one piece of knowledge to another. (Novice)

C - Knowledge is comprised of a hierarchy of information. Pieces of information fit within a complex structure, having categories and other rules. (Expert)

D - A highly connected knowledge structure with additional links that indicate cross-referencing or suggest where strict hierarchies might break down.

... Reflect on potential knowledge organizations students are likely to naturally develop.

... Give more tasks guided to restructure knowledge organizations best suited for various courses/disciplines.

... Draw on their own and new knowledge organizations to explore other methods students might prefer.

... Challenge their own knowledge organizations.

... Work with multiple organization structures while learning.

Consider a paleontologist's knowledge of dinosaurs organized on:

• A timeline of geological age

• A category of eating habitats

• A relationship to modern-day reptiles

Knowledge can be organized in ways that either do or do not facilitate learning, performance, and retention.

As instructors, we should consider the tasks students will be asked to perform in a given course or discipline in order to identify what knowledge organizations would best support those tasks.