What exactly is knowledge is still controversial. China's definition of knowledge is generally from a philosophical point of view. For example, the entry of "knowledge" in "China Encyclopedia of Education" states: "As far as its content is concerned, the so-called knowledge is the reflection of the attributes and connections of objective things and the subjective image of the objective world in the human brain. As far as the form of activity is concerned, sometimes it is manifested as subjective perception or representation of things, which belongs to perceptual knowledge, and sometimes it is manifested as the concept or law of things, which belongs to rational knowledge. " From this definition, we can see that knowledge is the product of the unity of subject and object. It comes from the outside world, so knowledge is objective; However, knowledge itself is not an objective reality, but a reflection of the characteristics and connections of things in the human brain and a subjective representation of objective things. Knowledge is produced on the basis of the interaction between subject and object through the reflective activities of the human brain.

The above definition provides a philosophical basis for us to discuss the connotation of knowledge. The macroscopic understanding of philosophical reflection theory needs to be concretized from the perspective of individual cognition, so that it can be effectively used to guide the specific teaching of schools.

Knowledge classification

According to modern cognitive psychology, knowledge can be divided into broad sense and narrow sense. Generalized knowledge can be divided into two categories, namely declarative knowledge and procedural knowledge.

1. declarative knowledge

Declarative knowledge is knowledge that describes the characteristics and relationships of objective things, also known as descriptive knowledge. Declarative knowledge mainly includes three different levels: symbolic representation, concept and proposition.

Symbolic representation is the simplest declarative knowledge. The so-called symbolic representation refers to the symbol that represents something. For example, the form of English words, numbers in mathematics, symbols in physical formulas, symbols of chemical elements, etc. What students learn is symbolic representation.

Concept is a reflection of the essential characteristics of a class of things and a complex declarative knowledge.

Proposition is the statement of the relationship between things and the most complicated declarative knowledge. Propositions can be divided into two categories: one is an unusual proposition, which only expresses the relationship between two or more special things. Another kind of proposition represents the relationship between several things or properties. This proposition is called generalization, such as "the diameter of a circle is twice its radius", and the multiple relationship here is universal.

2. Procedural knowledge

Procedural knowledge is a set of knowledge about the operation steps and processes of doing things, also known as operational knowledge. This kind of knowledge is mainly used to solve the problems of "what to do" and "how to do it", which can be used in operation and practice.

Strategic knowledge is a special procedural knowledge. It is knowledge about the methods and skills of cognitive activities. For example, "How to effectively remember?" "How to clarify the thinking direction of solving problems?" Wait a minute.

Different from philosophy, cognitive psychology studies knowledge from the perspectives of the source of knowledge, the generation process and manifestation of individual knowledge. For example, Piaget believes that experience (that is, knowledge) comes from the interaction between individuals and the environment. This kind of experience can be divided into two categories: one is physical experience, which comes from the outside world and is the understanding of objective things and their connections obtained by individuals acting on objects; The other is logic-mathematical experience, which comes from the actions of the subject and is the result of the individual's understanding of the coordination between actions. For example, children gain experience about quantity conservation by fiddling with objects, and students gain knowledge about mathematical principles through mathematical reasoning. Piaget's definition of knowledge is expressed from the generation process of individual knowledge. In the classification of educational objectives, Bloom thinks that knowledge is "the memory of specific things and universal principles, the memory of methods and processes, or the memory of models, structures or frameworks", which is a description of phenomena from the perspective of the contents contained in knowledge.

We believe that in understanding the meaning of knowledge, it is necessary to distinguish knowledge, which is the common wealth of human society, from knowledge in individuals' minds. The knowledge of human society exists objectively, but the knowledge in the individual's mind is not the objective reality itself, but a subjective representation of the individual, that is, the knowledge structure in the human brain, which includes not only feelings, perceptions and representations, but also concepts, propositions and schemas, respectively indicating the different breadth and depth of the individual's response to objective things, and is formed through the individual's cognitive activities. Generally speaking, individual knowledge is stored in the brain in the form of hierarchical network structure (cognitive structure) from concrete to abstract. Philosophy mainly studies the nature of common knowledge in human society, while psychology mainly studies the nature of individual knowledge.

Famous sayings about knowledge

Bacon: knowledge is power

Gorky: Take care of books. They are the source of knowledge.

Northcote: A learned man is a treasure house of knowledge, not a source.

If you don't absorb the light of knowledge, your mind will be shrouded in darkness.

Flex: A university is an institution that is consciously committed to pursuing knowledge, trying to solve difficult problems, evaluating people's achievements with a critical eye, and educating people with a really high level.

Chesterfield: When we are old, knowledge will be a comfortable and necessary place for us to retire. If we don't plant the tree of knowledge when we are young, there will be no place to enjoy the cool when we are old.

Song and Zhu: It's urgent, and it's not difficult to know. Do what you know and be fearless.

Ralph: The wisdom of a wise man is an unusual common sense.

Chesterfield: Reading can gain knowledge; But more useful knowledge about the world can only be obtained by studying all kinds of people.

Sai Johnson: Curiosity is the natural intention of human beings, and anyone with a sound mind will acquire knowledge by any means.

Engels: Complex labor includes the use of skills and knowledge, which require more or less effort, time and money.

Custer: The manager does not undertake the task of creating knowledge, but his task is to use knowledge effectively.

Riggs: The manager's management ability is his function in quality, knowledge and experience. These three factors interact to form a special management model.

Deng Xiaoping: We can't achieve modernization through empty talk. We must have knowledge and talent. How can you get along without knowledge and talent?

Kolmogorov: Science is the common wealth of mankind, and the task of real scientists is to enrich this treasure house of knowledge that all mankind can benefit from.

Herbert Spencer: Science is systematic knowledge.

Joseph Lu: Science is for studious people, and poetry is for learned people.

Holmes: Science is a partial anatomy of ignorance.

Schopenhauer: Extensive thoughts and knowledge without profound experience are just like a textbook with only two lines of text and 40 lines of notes on each page.

Lun Heng: A man with knowledge is powerful.

Practice is the mother of knowledge, and knowledge is the beacon of life.

Einstein: To learn knowledge, we should be good at thinking, thinking and thinking again.

Knowledge economy (knowledge economy)

The era significance of mankind's entry into knowledge economy: knowledge economy is a sustainable economy whose economic growth depends directly on the production, dissemination and use of knowledge and information, with high-tech industry as the primary industrial pillar and intellectual resources as the primary support. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, knowledge economy is an economy with modern science and technology as its core and based on the production, storage, use and consumption of knowledge and information.

1) declarative knowledge: knowledge about things and their relationships, or knowledge about "what", including the expression of facts, rules, events and other information.

Procedural knowledge: knowledge about the behavior or operation steps to complete a task, or knowledge about "how to do it". It includes all specific operating procedures of information conversion activities.

2) Common ground: The characteristics of the two representations in people's long-term memory are completely different, but both representations aim to make knowledge not only economically represented in long-term memory, but also flexibly used in limited working memory capacity.

3) The main differences between declarative knowledge and procedural knowledge are:

① Different types of knowledge: declarative knowledge is knowledge about "what"; Program knowledge is knowledge about how to do it.

(2) Representation and function are different: declarative knowledge mainly represents the relationship between concepts (proposition, representation, linear order, schema) through networking and structuring, which provides convenience for people to consider or reflect on the relationship between things; Procedural knowledge mainly assembles a series of conditions-actions through goal flow, which embodies what actions people will take to achieve a series of intermediate sub-goals and ultimately achieve the overall goal under what conditions.

The difference between static and dynamic: declarative knowledge is relatively static knowledge, reflecting the state of things and their relationships; On the other hand, procedural knowledge requires some operations on information to change it.

④ The speed and way of obtaining are different. The acquisition of declarative knowledge is mainly accomplished through active communication, while the acquisition of procedural knowledge depends more on programming and automation. The acquisition of declarative knowledge is faster, the schema takes a little longer, and the proposition can often be mastered in a few seconds, while the acquisition of procedural knowledge is much slower, and some take years or even longer. The reason is that two kinds of knowledge have completely different effects on people's survival, and procedural knowledge directly triggers or controls people's behavior, so people have to be cautious when acquiring such knowledge.

⑤ The difficulty of revision is different: for declarative knowledge, it is easier to revise, but of course it is more difficult to revise some rigid schemas; For procedural knowledge, it is easy to modify at the initial stage of acquisition, but once it is coded and automated in human memory, it will be quite difficult to modify it.

⑥ The standards of declarative knowledge and procedural knowledge are different. Declarative knowledge is tested by seeing whether it can be stated and described, and procedural knowledge is tested by seeing whether it can be operated and realized.

4) declarative knowledge and procedural knowledge are two inseparable aspects in the learning process. Any knowledge learning must go through the presentation stage before it can enter the program stage. The acquisition process of procedural knowledge is the transformation process from declarative knowledge to skills. Practice and feedback are important conditions for transforming declarative knowledge into procedural knowledge. The application of procedural knowledge is helpful to the learning of declarative knowledge. In most human activities, these two kinds of knowledge participate together and are mutually conditional.

First, the difference between procedural knowledge and declarative knowledge.

Program knowledge

Declarative knowledge

In the form of expression, a series of "conditions-actions" are assembled in the form of production through the purpose flow. In the form of expression, the connection between ideas is mainly expressed through network and structure.

The main concern is "how to do it" and "how to do it". Like how to drive. The main concern is "what". It is descriptive knowledge of events. For example, it rained yesterday.

It is a dynamic knowledge. For example, how to drive involves many processes. It is a kind of static knowledge. It is only a description of things, not dynamic.

Take your time. According to the difficulty of specific projects, the time required is also quite different. But after this knowledge is acquired, it is not easy to forget. For example, although people haven't ridden a bicycle for a long time, they often keep this skill after many years.

Can be obtained quickly. But forgetting is quick. For example, you can quickly remember a piece of news in the newspaper, but often forget it soon.

It is very difficult to modify it after getting it. For example, it is difficult for a skilled driver to make great adjustments to his driving movements. It is easier to adjust or modify after acquisition. For example, students are more likely to change the sentence "Li Bai is a poet of the Song Dynasty" to "Li Bai is a poet of the Tang Dynasty".

Second, the similarity between procedural knowledge and declarative knowledge.

Although there are many differences between procedural knowledge and declarative knowledge, there are similarities between them. For example, although they are completely different in the representation characteristics of people's long-term memory, they all have the same economic representation of knowledge and experience stored in the human brain. Moreover, this knowledge can be used flexibly in the case of limited working memory capacity. For example, in declarative knowledge, when the connection between the objective world is preserved in the form of propositions, it is possible for people to take a limited number of propositions (ideas) that they thought at that time as clues in working memory, and extract relevant propositions or ideas from their own long-term memory network from time to time, so people's association with each other comes down to the formation of this concept network. Similarly, for procedural knowledge, it smoothly controls a series of actions through its own purpose flow to reduce the burden of people's working memory.