ABSTRACT
The present paper examined human expertise from three perspectives, i.e. knowledge acquisition, participation, and knowledge creation (Paavola et al., 2004; Hakkarainen et al., 2004). Implications of these theoretical perspectives will be illustrated by reporting results of two ongoing investigations of professional expertise. Based on consideration of the latter two perspectives, it is argued that human expertise is collective in nature and cannot be understood as mere individual and mental process (knowledge-acquisition perspective). We consider the metaphors as heuristic tools that assist in examining various aspects of learning. While the first two have been extensively examined and investigated, the third aspect is mostly unknown territory. Yet, in order to have a holographic view of learning one needs to take all of the perspectives, simultaneously, into consideration.
