Real understanding comes through insight or the "Aha" moment. This presentation examines how Insight works as seen through the eye's of Michael Polanyi's tacit theory of knowledge. Insight operates at the subconscious level hence seems like magic. Understanding the structure of tacit knowledge takes some of the magic out leaving us better able to learn and teach for the insight moment.

1. This is all about:
Fake Learning vs. Real learning
(real money)
(fake money)
http://www.anonymousartofrevolution.com/2012/10/real-money-vs-fake-money.html

2. Fake Learning
• Too often happens in formal schooling
• Students not really engaged
• Take lecture notes without comprehension
• Fail to ask questions
• Cram for a test by relying on memorization
• Ask: What‟s going to be on the test?
• Ask: What formulas do I need to
memorize?

3. Real Learning
• Involves really understanding, often
accompanied by flashes of insight (Aha!)
• No need to cram for a test (instead get aa good
nights sleep)
• Learning stays with the learner for a long time
• Learning is in a form that can be used creatively
and encourages critical thinking
• This slide show is about explaining and
helping to achieve the insight moment

4. Understanding Through Insight
Capitalizing on Michael Polanyi‟s
Tacit Theory of Knowledge

5. What does it mean
To “Understand” Something?
• Generally we recognize when we
understand something…..or don’t!
• We also know how hard it can be to arrive
at that understanding.
• We have also experienced the difficulty of
explaining that understanding to someone
else.

6. Getting to The “Aha!”
• Why is this so HARD to do?
• Seems to take an uncontrollable
amount of time
Success occurs in a flash
It‟s called INSIGHT

7. INSIGHT is a key topic among some recent and
deservedly popular books like:
www.metaphonia.com

8. Unconscious Snap Judgment's
Malcolm Gladwell
Little, Brown and Company
2005

9. Intelligence of the Unconscious
Gerd Gigenrenzer
Penguin Books
2007

10. Secret Lives of the Brain
David Eagleman
Vintage Books
Random House
2011

11. The Cognitive Snap
David Perkins

12. Understanding the Problem of
“Understanding”
Using Michael Polanyi‟s
TACIT THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
Ted Spickler: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ted-spickler/7/160/39b
www.tacitknowledge.org
This presentation is about:

13. Polanyi began his theory with
“Awareness”
• He claimed there are two different ways
that we can be aware of something.
• 1. Focal
• 2. Subsidiary

14. Lets work with a Simple example:
• The task:
• Using a hammer to pound a nail into wood

15. 1. Focal Awareness
• It‟s obvious:
• It‟s what you pay mindful attention too.
• It absorbs your short term memory.
• It‟s what we mean by “paying attention”.
• You have a focal awareness of the
hammer head hitting the nail.

16. 2. Subsidiary Awareness
• (This is harder to understand).
• It‟s a collection of awareness's that float
vaguely around in the mental background.
• It encompasses all the associated details
of the “thing” your mind is working on
including the sense of your
fingers gripping the hammer handle, and wrist wrist
and wrist motions
as well as arm motions.
Polanyi called these elements “Subsidiary Particulars”

17. The Structure of Tacit Knowledge
• We say that we rely on a subsidiary
awareness of the various subsidiary
particulars in order to aim focal attention to
that to which all the particulars “point”.
• Regarding the hammer: We rely on a subsidiary
awareness of various muscular movements in
order to have a focal awareness of the hammer
head hitting the nail.

18. HUH?
• Any complex entity has “subsidiary
particulars”
• These must all be kept in your mind (at the
same time) in the unconscious
background.
• They all converge in a holistic manner to
direct your focal attention to something
bigger and beyond any of the particulars.
• This process is called “Forming a Tacit
Integration”.

19. Another Example: Riding a Bike
• Try riding a bike with your attention
focused on your hands gripping the
handlebars. What will happen?
• Suppose you needed to calculate
moments of inertia to stay upright?
• You rely on a tacit knowing of all the
subsidiary particulars needed to ride a
bike in order to „focally attend to” where
you are going!

20. Can you Teach the Tacit
Integration?
• Is there a book that, once studied, allows
you to jump on a bike and ride off?
• Is there a book that, once read, allows you
to play a recorder with full musical
inflection?
• Is there a set of logical instructions
which can take you step by step to the
promised land of any integrated
understanding?

21. NO
The Tacit Integration is a
Personal Creative Act.
It belongs to You

22. Tacit Knowledge
“We know more than we can tell”
Michael Polanyi: THE TACIT DIMENSION

23. Understanding
• This process is applicable to intellectual
endeavors, like understanding something
rather complex.
• To say we understand an idea we need to
have all the relevant “subsidiary
particulars” floating around in the mind so
they can all work tacitly together directing
our focal attention to the idea to which
they contribute.

24. Expectations:
• Students expect teachers to simply explain
the hard thing (or they expect to read
about it in a good book) and then the hard
thing becomes clear.
• Teachers expect (want) students to listen
to their brilliant explanation and (without
taking excessive amounts of time)
recognize that they understand it!

25. Learning Reality
• Teachers explain until their lips bleed and
nothing happens.
• Students read the text……get
confused…and nothing happens.
• Everyone is frustrated.
• Understanding only happens when the
tacit integration occurs

26. Eventually…….
• If all sides stick to the program and keep
working, the approach to understanding
often does take place.
• Might be accompanied with an exultant
sense of “Eureka”!
• Both teachers and students can be excited
by that “Aha!” moment!

27. UNDERSTANDING
• When you really understand something it‟s
deeply embedded into your “mind stuff”.
• In fact so deep that you are not able to
fully articulate what it is that you know!
• Which means, as teachers, we are stuck
with a serious problem:
• We know some stuff that we cannot tell!

28. INSIGHT
• This is the hard part.
• Making that “tacit integration” so all the
pieces fit together hence allowing the mind
to “see” the whole thing.
• It‟s called “understanding”
• Before that moment occurs we exist in a
no-mans-land of confusion and uncertainty
and stress because…..

29. We misunderstand the
confusion and feel
like an
Idiot

30. Forming the Tacit Integration
• Is hard.
• It Isn‟t done by your friend
• It Isn‟t done by the book
• It Isn‟t even done by the teacher
• You cannot FORCE it

31. It‟s Gotta be done by
YOU
ALL BY YOURSELF!

32. Nobody can tell you directly how to
just do it
• The tacit integration is not self
observable.
• You cannot make it happen through
conscious force of will.
• It is utterly unpredictable
• Cannot happen by the clock
• Yet it is necessary to finally “understand”
what it is that you are trying to understand.

33. When the Magic Occurs
• The moment tacit integration occurs is the
“light bulb” moment….the “Aha!” moment…..the
exultant sense of release when we feel that we
“got it!”
• Suddenly all those swirling-around subsidiary
particulars integrate together in the mind to form
the relationship that throws your mind focally to
the end product:
the THING that you now
UNDERSTAND!

34. Deriving Teaching Methodology from The
Tacit Theory of Knowledge
• This is why it takes time to finally
understand something.
• It also explains why some folks “get it”
sooner than others:
– It depends on your “having” all the subsidiary
particulars floating around in your mind.
– Then being able to stick them together to form
the tacit integration.
– Remember the harsh fact: no outsider can
make the integration happen.

35. The Nature of Tacit Knowledge
• If you direct your focal attention to any one
of the subsidiary particulars, you lose the
“tacit integration” of those particulars into a
focal awareness of the desired result
(such as hammering a nail).
• So when hammering a nail do not look
closely at your wrist, you must
“get out of the way”
of your body.

36. FAKE LEARNING VS. REAL
LEARNING
It‟s the difference between

37. Learning to Understand
• When trying to understand something new
we need to gather up all the necessary
subsidiary particulars.
• Get them jostling inside the mind
• Get them working together in a subsidiary
manner.
• Eliminate errors and misconceptions…..
• Then they can form a “tacit integration”
hence pointing our mind to the “whole” to
which they contribute.

38. It’s a CREATIVE ACT!
• Don‟t we usually think of teaching as
explaining something (first discovered by
some old dead guy) to a student such that
they “get it”?
• But forming a tacit integration is a strictly
personal event that is highly creative.
• So, It‟s more like guiding the student to the
cliff face and then waiting for them to
JUMP!

39. The Moment of Tacit Integration
INSIGHT

40. Ted Spickler is a retired college
professor and corporate trainer.
Currently working on a book about
tacit knowledge and how to improve
educational outcomes by using Polanyi’s
Theory to generate the real learning that comes from the insight moment
Link to Ted’s LinkedIn page:
Link to Ted’s webpage:
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ted-
spickler/7/160/39b
http://www.tacitknowledge.org/

41. Some Useful Sources
• Personal Knowledge Michael Polanyi:
University of Chicago Press 1958, 1962.
• The Tacit Dimension Michael Polanyi: Anchor
Books 1967
• Meaning Michael Polanyi Harry Prosch: University of
Chicago Press 1975
• Tacit and Explicit Knowledge Harry Collins:
University of Chicago Press: 2010
• Implicit Learning and Tacit Knowledge
Arthur Reber: Oxford University Press 1993