How to be the best Expert

The world functions by experts of different topics working together to create the best world possible for human kind.  A person becomes an expert by continuous experience in one domain.  Through consistent, repeated work a person creates internal representations and these representations then work together to create cognitive maps.

Being a professional is beneficial because you're knowledge and experience allow you to work quickly and efficiently.  You have created maps that allow you to notice what a problem is and then predict the outcome of your various possible decisions.  An expert is more confident in their decisions than someone that only knows a bit of information about the specific domain because they have worked with this before and have seen many successes and failures.  It is important that others in the same domain become just as confident as the expert.

An expert is important in a field of work or study, but having a limited number of experts means that limited work can be done.  In the environmental field, having a limited number of experts in climate change means that only a select amount of scientists can run tests or create plans to prevent climate change.  It is important that experts pass on their knowledge and expertise to those in the same domain so that the knowledge can be passed on and built upon for many years to come.

It can be difficult for an expert to teach a novice about their domain.  Experts have such complex internal representations and cognitive maps that many simple things just come to them quickly and they do not necessarily know how to explain it to a novice.  Experts also have a wealth of knowledge and this can be overbearing on a novice trying to remember all of the things they are learning.  A novice trying to learn the science of climate change might get overwhelmed because the expert may not always take time to explain the different natural processes of the earth because the expert has worked and studied these processes for so long that it is second nature to them.  In order to solve problems such as climate change, the expert needs to learn to share their expertise with the future experts in their domain.  The novice must use directed attention to try and learn as much of the new information as possible but their directed attention can become depleted and after this they will not retain any useful information.

There are many ways for an expert to efficiently educate a novice and be the best expert possible.

1. The expert should think back to when they were learning about the domain and consider some of          the basic topics they learned and some of the things that were difficult for them.

2. The expert should get a sense of the level of knowledge that the novice has in the domain.

3. If there is a gap in basic knowledge in the novice, the expert should carefully explain the needed         information and give it in context to the domain and how it will be beneficial.

                    *Giving specific examples related to the work is beneficial

4. It is important not to overwhelm the novice, focus on between 2-7 main ideas.

5. Make sure the learning environment is good
                    *No distractions
                    *Allow for breaks and times to restore directed attention

6. The expert should use stories from their experience to help the novice relate all of the new                   information to their own life.

By doing these things, many novices will become experts in their own way.  This will allow future generations to continue working together to create a better, well functioning world that will continue to grow and prosper.