The thesis, much compressed: Practitioners in ill-structured domains (arts, managers, engineers, planners, etc) work in ways which can’t be reduced to technical knowledge and rational procedures, as schools have increasingly tried (and failed) to do. But expertise is real: these practitioners do have important and often consistent kinds of knowledge and methods. Their knowing is tied up in action (“knowing-in-practice”), resisting abstraction and decontextualization. They deal with highly contingent problems by reflecting on the observed consequences of their moves (“reflection-in-action”) and on their approach to the problem (“reflection-on-action”). This iteration is related to scientific experimentation, but generally aims to produce forward momentum, rather than rigorous universal conclusions.
Lots of connections here to Situated learning, though Schön’s claims aren’t nearly as extreme as Situated Learning - Lave and Wenger.
Q. Key difference between Schön and Illich’s criticisms of professional expertise?
A. Illich thinks that expertise is irrelevant (can’t deal with messiness of reality) or fraudulent, and advocates a return to local practice with “convivial” tools that anyone can understand; Schön thinks expertise is real and learnable, but the rational epistemology taught in schools and discussed by “scientists of the practice” can explain only a small part of what experts actually do.
Q. Schön’s key criticism of the framing of professional practice in The Sciences of the Artificial - Herb Simon?
A. Simon frames these “sciences of the artificial” as search problems—maximizing utility subject to constraints. Schön points out that practice is often as much about figuring out what problem to solve as it is about seeking a solution. (“problem setting vs. problem solving”)
Q. How does Schön’s understanding of professional expertise differ from the idea of Tacit knowledge introduced by Polanyi?
A. Professionals have “knowing-in-action” (implicit, situated), but they also rely on reflection (-in-action and -on-action) to select, criticize, and restructure this knowing. (p61)
Q. How does Schön distinguish between knowing-in-action and knowledge-in-action?
A. “Knowing-“ is the implicit feel for the elements of a situation, whereas “knowledge-“ is an attempt to capture that knowing in a descriptive theory. (p59)
Q. Schön points out that “practice” is ambiguous—what are its two meanings?
A. 1) a lawyer’s “practice” (ongoing performance in a range of situations); 2) “practicing” the piano (preparation for performance)
Q. What unifies the two meanings of “practice” which Schön identifies?
A. Both an architect’s “practice” and a pianist’s “practice” sessions center on repetition. As the architect encounters variations on projects, he “practices” his practice. (p60)
When someone reflects-in-action, he becomes a researcher in the practice context. He is not dependent on the categories of established theory and technique, but constructs a new theory of the unique case. His inquiry is not limited to a deliberation about means which depends on a prior agreement about ends. He does not keep means and ends separate, but defines them interactively as he frames a problematic situation. He does not separate thinking from doing, ratiocinating his way to a decision which he must later convert to action. Because his experimenting is a kind of action, implementation is built into his inquiry. Thus reflection-in-action can proceed, even in situations of uncertainty or uniqueness, because it is not bound by the dichotomies of Technical Rationality.
“I shall consider designing as {a conversation with the materials of a situation}.”
In the medium of sketch and spatial-action language, he represents buildings on the site through moves which are also experiments. Each move has consequences described and evaluated in terms drawn from one or more design domains. Each has implications binding on later moves. And each creates new problems to be described and solved. Quist designs by spinning out a web of moves, consequences, implications, appreciations, and further moves. (p94)
Q. Three ways a designer evaluates his moves?
A. 1) consequences w.rt. domain norms; 2) consonance with earlier moves’ implications; 3) new potentials/problems created (p101)
Five questions Schön suggests practitioners use to judge reframings: 1) {can I solve it?} 2) {do I like what I get?} 3) {have I made the situation coherent?} 4) {have I made it congruent with my fundamental beliefs/theories?} 5) {have I kept inquiry moving?} (p133)
Q. How does Schön suggest practitioners bring past experience to bear on new unique situations?
A. Drawing on a repertoire of examples to “see unfamiliar situations as familiar ones”; to see this as that, so that we can do for this as we did for that. (p140)
There’s a lot of juicy material in ch 5 on the relationship between reflection-in-action and scientific experiment.
Q. How do virtual worlds fit into Schön’s theory?
A. Virtual worlds allow practitioners to more fluidly try and reflect on moves; relatedly, creating, maintaining and using these worlds help develop that reflective capacity.
Q. Why might managers in hierarchical organizations find it difficult to teach others to do what they do?
A. In their day-to-day work, they rarely articulate their intuitive reasoning to others, so they may have little awareness of their reflection-in-action.