The access and availability of information have dramatically increased with the advancement of technology, creating a world where almost everyone is inundated with an overwhelming amount of information. The presence of all of this information requires humans to know and understand certain elements and facts to process and utilize this information. In other words, for someone to know, they must be able to generate meaning and understanding from information to make connections for application. To develop the skills to know, humans take cues from the world and people around us, learning how they use the information to make connections and apply what they have learned or create knowledge.

Knowledge is taking information, generating meaning, making connections, and applying it through behaviors and tasks. This process is constantly experimented with in all aspects of our lives from the time we are born. As newborns, we take information from our bodies and the world around us to learn how to meet our bodies’ basic needs with the help of our parents. As we grow more aware of the world, through observation, we see that other humans are able to move and communicate, and we begin to experiment with processes to interact with the world, developing our motor and communication skills along the way. Once we can move and begin to communicate, we continue taking in more information from the world around us, developing meanings, making connections, and growing our skills of understanding. As we reach school age, we are then set upon a path that helps us gather more information that we would not normally be exposed to within our small bubble of the world but helps us make meaning of our place and the skills we need to survive independently. At this stage, most of us experience the greatest experimentation in creating knowledge, as these processes are affected by the changing world and technology around us. These changes are evident through observation of how learning has changed in our lifetime and by having discussions with our peers and elders about what learning looked like to them. As we come to the end of our formal educational journeys, the learning is not over. However, it shifts to utilizing the skills we have developed throughout our lives and applying them in our behaviors as we learn to navigate the world around us. Formal learning opportunities still exist in our lives through work and other activities. However, we will inevitably face challenges or opportunities where we must use information, develop an understanding, connect it to our lives, and apply it to move forward and survive.

In reflection on my definition of knowledge, there are many ways to test my idea depending on where the learner is in their life phase. As my primary research interest lies in the field of adult education, I would test an experiment with my definition examining how adults deal with a change in a common practice they engage in regularly. I would provide the test population with information on the change through some sort of media on a commonly used channel and then observe how they use the information to understand the changes, connect the change to the existing process, and apply the new information to complete the new process successfully. These observations should show the test population taking information, generating meaning, making connections, applying it to a task, and changing their behavior moving forward. As with any experiment, I make many assumptions that could affect the outcomes. I am assuming that the test population will understand the old process, be able to utilize the communication media effectively, and that the information provides sufficient information on the changes and the new process. These assumptions are one of the reasons why we see so much experimentation when it comes to learning and helping learners develop knowledge. We, as researchers, try to create processes that work for everyone, but since we are all so inherently different, there are always unforeseen outcomes. So we, like every other human being, take the information, develop meaning, make connections, and apply the information as we revise and redesign our processes to try and make learning more efficient and accessible to all.

The idea of knowledge and the process of knowing is also an area that is constantly evolving as we have more information. We all have things that we know, but can we quantify how we know it? For me, this is the process of learning or being able to create and develop knowledge to meet our needs to achieve a goal or maintain the status quo. As we move through our lives, we have different needs that we are trying to meet and, therefore, acquire knowledge in different ways. My understanding of learning is influenced by a few areas of learning theory and many more that I may not be aware of yet. My definition of knowledge and the outlined acquisition process as we grow is influenced by Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (Maslow, 1943). Our learning is influenced throughout our lives to meet the needs at our different levels. As newborns, we learn how to signal when we need food or are uncomfortable due to an environmental factor. As we progress, we learn to develop skills and behaviors that allow us to become more social and employable and develop our sense of identity as we make decisions that direct our life’s trajectory. These decisions are influenced by our needs, which in turn determines how we use information to create knowledge. My personal learning theory is also influenced by two other main theories of learning, Constructivism and Connectivism. Constructivism is the theory that we take information to construct or develop knowledge (Piaget & Rosin, 1982). Connectivism is the theory that learners connect ideas, theories, and information to develop meaning (Dunaway, 2011; Siemens, 2004). As we receive information, we use our experiences and needs to build meaning and connect to prior knowledge to apply `the new information through our task behavior. This creates a learning process where we use the information around us to connect to other information and experiences to create meaning and knowledge as we better understand the world around us.

References:

Dunaway K. M. (2011). Connectivism. Reference Services Review, 39(4), 675-685. https://doi.org/10.1108/00907321111186686

Maslow, A. H. (1943). Preface to motivation theory. Psychosomatic medicine, 5(1), 85-92.

Piaget, J., & Rosin, A. (1982). Psychology and epistemology: Towards a theory of knowledge. 

Siemens, G. (2004). Elearnspace. Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age. Elearnspace. org, 14-16.