Artikel Umum 6 - Knowledge Transfer

Knowledge transfer is literally the transfer of knowledge from one brain to another. Transfer does not mean that the knowledge has to be in exactly the same structure. People currently measure successful transfer by some sort of test of memory or performance. A better way of thinking about transfer is to use the concept of growing rather than transfer. The use of the word transfer seems to imply that all the knowledge is passed from one person to another like passing a ball. The process requires a certain amount of prerequisite knowledge scaffolding within the transferee before it begins. That scaffolding is the sum of all knowledge learned from childhood that supports the process of knowledge transfer itself as well as the actual structure being moved. The total cost of transfer depends largely on this scaffolding.

For example, in order to tell someone where the coffee machine is the transferee need to have a complex scaffolding of preknowledge about the concept navigating a building, The transfer process requires that the transferee has enough prerequisite knowledge to even begin the process. Knowledge is not really transferred in the sense that all information necessary to replicate that knowledge is transferred from one brain to another.

One way is by sending information through a series of messages to transform the knowledge of a receiver until the sender judges that knowledge structure is of the receiver matches close enough to the sender’s mental model. An example of this type of transfer is when a teacher teaches a student how to perform a certain action such as setting a table for dinner. The teacher sends a series of messages to the learner adjusted by feedback through observation until the teacher judges that the learner “knows” how to set the table. The cost of transfer can be determined by the amount of time and number of messages required to transfer the knowledge into the other.