How “knowledge-rich” is your curriculum? If you have been keeping pace with recent pedagogical debate, the answer to this is probably “very”. The case for placing subject knowledge at the heart of the school curriculum has been widely accepted in schools.

A legion of knowledge organisers, and similar tools, have since been deployed to help teachers translate the subject knowledge of the school curriculum into action.

But while it is important that we recognise the value of developing pupils’ knowledge, we should also be aware of the gap that exists between “knowing” and “doing”, and what that means for how we use tools such as knowledge organisers.

In a recent study, German researcher Garvin Brod offered a more complicated picture of knowledge and its relationship to new learning. He explored how pupils’ prior knowledge may not always be used effectively by them and how, in some cases, it may even hinder learning.

Brod describes three preconditions for when prior knowledge will have the most impact on new learning. First, the knowledge must be “activated” ; second, it needs to be relevant to the task at hand; and finally, the activated knowledge must be “congruent” - that is to say, fitting very neatly - with the new knowledge being learned in class.

The pitfalls of knowledge organisers

When we consider the need for knowledge to be “activated” in order for it to be useful, the gap between knowing and doing seems particularly pronounced. For instance, you might teach about gender attitudes in Macbeth, and words such as “misogyny”, “sexism” and “patriarchy” may feature in a keyword list for the text. But when it comes to students writing an essay about the character of Lady Macbeth, many of them will not automatically recognise that this is the place to apply that knowledge.

On the flip side, you can see problems associated with “irrelevant knowledge” cropping up in students’ writing, too. They may try to cram as many terms as they can from a knowledge organiser into an essay but, if those terms are not directly relevant to the specific question they have been asked, it can make their essay less effective.

We also have to recognise that knowledge organisers lend themselves to facts: word lists, definitions, dates and so on. Students can therefore develop an illusion of knowledge from just a few key facts. Yet understanding how to apply that knowledge to a complex task, such as a piece of extended writing, is another thing entirely. Students may know the facts but if those facts do not comfortably fit into the task at hand, then knowing the facts will not be enough.

So, what does all of this tell us? Well, while tools such as knowledge organisers may provide a useful starting point for students to build their subject knowledge, the research suggests that these tools will likely prove insufficient when it comes to supporting the application of knowledge in more complex tasks.

The reality of the gap between “knowing” and “doing” is something that every teacher therefore needs to consider. And this means that they should be deploying tools such as knowledge organisers with great care, particularly when it comes to younger, novice pupils.

Alex Quigley is national content manager at the Education Endowment Foundation. He is a former teacher and the author of Closing the Reading Gap, published by Routledge

This article originally appeared in the 8 October 2021 issue under the headline “It ain’t what you know, it’s the way you apply it”