Trough of Disillusionment
The declarative vs. procedural knowledge coming to light while in grad school
While the Gartner Hype Cycle is typically be applied when speaking about new technologies, I would argue that this cycle can easily be transferred to learning new skills.
Particularly, that point after going through the painful yet exciting process of learning a new tool, then biting off more than you can chew after you feel generally competent, only to spiral downward after hitting against the overlooked or previously unknown gaps in your knowledge. Here is an example of when I recently hit my trough of disillusionment in grad school:
Another way to put it, I came up against what was my declarative knowledge versus my procedural knowledge. According to Université Nice-Sophia-Antipolis’s Learning and Teaching Foreign Languages page, “declarative knowledge involves knowing THAT something is the case” while “procedural knowledge involves knowing HOW to do something.”
It comes down to being able to say that something is a fact, ie the capital of Colorado is Denver, versus implicitly knowing how, like riding a bike, which may be harder to explain.
While in the beginning of learning a new tool, I have found that I rely heavily on the declarative knowledge (if I follow this tutorial, then this will happen), which is instrumental to my learning process.
However, whenever I dip my toes into anything close to programming, it becomes very clear that understanding how things work, and how to fix something when it breaks, is extremely important. I feel like I am in high school PreCalculus all over again (shudder).
