Soliciting knowledge
Let's imagine that you are a dentist. After a day of work, you go to the movies to relax. Comfortably seated in your seat, you are absorbed by the plot and your knowledge of dentistry is perfectly useless to you: it is therefore put on hold.
However, during the movie, a scene shows a character going to his dentist... immediately it awakens in you some knowledge. And the more precise the scene is (the dialogues refer to certain acts, we can see the tools used...), the more your knowledge is activated, as if you were ready to take action (even through the screen). However, at this stage, your competence is not solicited, since it is not you who carries out the medical act, but the dentist of the film. As soon as this scene is over and the plot continues, your knowledge goes back to sleep...
Implementing the skill
... Until the next morning, when you start your work day. As you receive your first patient, the knowledge ball starts again: they wake up and are available to respond to the demands of the skill! She's the one running the show... As you get into action, your competence unfolds by calling upon this knowledge or that skill, as needed. It is competence that helps you make the right decisions, to consider one hypothesis rather than another. Competence acts like a conductor who guides the musicians according to the score to be played. It calls up the relevant knowledge, combines it, mixes it, associates it with this or that skill, to produce the best possible result.
(All the knowledge and skills are ready, but the competence waits for the leader to manifest itself. All competence is essentially evanescent, because it exists only between the first and last note).
In a day this happens as many times as there are patients to treat. Competence will occur systematically, but with nuances and variations, depending on the context: a dentist does not treat a cavity and an implant in the same way, for example, although both require knowledge of dentistry.
Encoded knowledge, but a skill to be constantly recreated
The deliberately simplified example of the dentist aims to highlight the fundamental differences between knowledge and competence.
Our knowledge remains present, stored and encoded in our brain, even while we are doing something else (such as watching a movie). It is our raw material that allows us to take action.
Our competence, on the other hand, is not encoded. It is created each time, to meet a specific need, in a specific setting. Competence is made, manifested in context!
To be competent is therefore to be able to choose in our heads the knowledge, skills and attitudes that will allow us to carry out a specific complex task, at a specific time. This explains why, faced with an identical problem, two people with similar knowledge can express their competence differently. This also implies that we are never competent once and for all, but we show it, we demonstrate it successfully... most of the time!
Conclusion
Competence is the art of selecting and combining our knowledge, skills and attitudes, of juggling these cognitive assets to produce a quality result in a unique context. Tomorrow, we will still have to demonstrate our competence...
Since competence does not exist outside of action, it must be learned IN action, in an authentic context. It would be completely illusory to claim to "teach a skill"! In order for a learner to develop a competency, we must create a learning environment that puts him or her in action and forces him or her to juggle his or her own cognitive material: knowledge, skills and attitudes. It is also necessary to provide a safe environment to allow for errors.
Yes, it is demanding, but that is the price to pay for developing tools as powerful as skills.
Learn more :
Educational Approach: Creating Engaging and Effective Trainings
