For the purposes of clearly differentiating between the categories of procedural and declarative knowledge, I shall begin by outlining an abstract view of what declarative knowledge is in the practical context of SuperMemo. I choose declarative knowledge first because it is the one we are all familiar with studying through SuperMemo.
The following question-answer pairs are typical declarative items:
Q: What is the capital city of the US?
A: Washington DC
Q: What is the general form of Pythagoras' Theorem?
A: c2 = a2 + b2
Q: Thermodynamics: What does the shaded area of the following diagram represent?
A: The boundary work
You could even play a short melody and ask what the name of it is. All such items are declarative, and I shall shortly explain why. But first, here is the definition:
DEFINITION: Knowledge that can be tested through representation alone is declarative
Representation:
The key to understanding what declarative knowledge is lies in realising that the words we use in the question and answer are not the "knowledge" itself, but merely representations of it. The easiest way to see this is to realise that every one of the questions written above could have been written in another language, say Spanish, and they would still be perfectly valid. The words themselves are only a stand-in for the hidden, underlying concepts that we can never really see directly. Rather than turning this into a philosophical issue, this definition is meant to clearly contrast with the definition that I will provide for procedural knowledge in the next post.
For those who are familiar with Dr Wozniak's article on the "20 Rules of Formulating Knowledge," it will be clear that this principle of representation is the reason why formulation is possible at all! Inasmuch as the words themselves are only representations of the knowledge (and not the concept laid bare) we have a large degree of freedom in choosing how to represent the information. We can use multimedia such as images, sounds and videos, or more often we can just change the wording. We use words that are more familiar or evocative, and style the punctuation in a clearer, punchier way. We regularly transform articles into question-answer items without damaging the information in any way. In fact, this transformation often helps to reveal the underlying concepts more clearly.
Recognition:
Apart from the use of representation, the second key characteristic of declarative knowledge is the use of recognition in working with it. Look back at the questions above and you will see they all involve the need to "recognise" the answer. This recognition is more or less intuitive as it is (or should be!) a 1-step process; see the "minimum information principle" at supermemo.com for more information. No "reasoning" is involved... just an "effort" to bring back the answer.
Take the first question:
Q: What is the capital city of America?
A: Washington DC
You may find it strange to call the process of coming up with this answer as "recognition". Are we really "recognising" that the capital city of America is Washington? In order to skim over any potential problems I choose to make this description correct by definition! That is, that "recognition" is the process to finding the answer to a declarative question. In fact, this definition is not all that different from the normal one, when applied. For example, in order to correctly find the answer we must already be familiar with the material. If you are able to answer a question without having come across something similar in the past, then you are deducing the answer from your knowledge, and such a question is worthless in supermemo. Instead, you should be inputting non-deductive material (see http://www.supermemo.eu/supermemo_method).
Secondly, you find the answer to a declarative item by seeking out associated knowledge. In any normal context, this is a regular aspect of the recognition process - you become aware of associations to the given material. For example, you can understand what someone is saying in your mother tongue because you can associate everything they say with your previous knowledge of that language. You can recognise someone's face because you associate it with previous encounters with that person.
While we are on the topic of associations, it is important to bring up the following point:
An item of declarative knowledge is characterised (i.e. made unique) by the semantic links between the question and the answer.
Using our definition of declarative knowledge and an understanding of its general nature we are now in a position to move forward to the discussion of our main interest... Procedural Knowledge!
All feedback or questions are appreciated.
Posts
(LittleFish here)
ReplyDeleteVery interesting information; I agree, sometimes redundancy can be a good thing (To an extent). It is like thoroughly painting a wall. It is fine to use a small extra amount of paint to ensure a thorough job. It only depends on how much the extra paint costs. In this case, because knowledge is remembered so easily with Supermemo, a few extra items here or there is not harmful to the learning process.
exactly. Also, as Wozniak says, in the case that SuperMemo makes an interval too long or you start getting interference with other items, redundancy gives you some backup access routes to the same knowledge. However, I have myself noticed that a "deep" understanding, as opposed to a "shallow" one, consists almost entirely of a thoroughly redundant understanding. That is, being able to think about the same things from many points of view, and to describe and use them accordingly.
ReplyDelete