1. Teaching for Transfer: Theory and Practice
Adrienne Jankens & Thomas Trimble
2013 Fall Orientation

2. Transfer Defined
“The ability to extend what one has learned in one context to new contexts” (Bransford, 1996).
“Preparation for future learning” (Bransford and Schwarz, 1999)
Ade

3. Basic Concepts Low-road transfer (car to truck) High-road transfer
Automatic, stimulus-driven
High-road transfer
Mindful, deliberate
Near transfer- from one context to another similar context
from algebra to geometry
Far transfer- from one context to a seemingly unrelated context
from algebra to cooking
Negative transfer-when experience in one context hurts performance in another
from soccer to basketball
Thomas

4. Characteristics of Learning and Transfer (Bransford)
Initial learning is necessary for transfer
New learning involves transfer based on previous learning
Transfer is best viewed as a dynamic, active process
Transfer is not a unitary process-different routes to transfer
Ade

5. Factors that impact transfer
Abstraction-transfer is enhanced by instruction that helps students reconstruct problems at higher levels of abstraction
Abstraction builds bridges between different contexts
Learner-generated abstractions promote transfer better than instructor-supplied abstractions
Transfer is difficult when knowledge is over-contextualized (only taught in one highly specific context)
Prompting
Helping students see the potential for transfer in other settings and contexts
Reflection (metacognition)
Self-monitoring
Thomas

6. Engaging and Recontextualizing Prior Knowledge
Rounsaville, Goldberg, and Bawarshi (2008): Prompting and encouraging students to reflect on what prior knowledge is influencing their approaches to new writing tasks is key for their development of metacognition
Reiff and Bawarshi (2011): “Boundary crossing” and “boundary guarding”
Nowacek (2011); Rounsaville (2012): Students work through a negotiation between prior knowledge and present task
Roberston, Taczak, and Yancey (2012): “remixing,” “assemblage,” and “critical incidents”
Ade

7. Discussion
Reflection as a genre?
The vocabulary of reflection?

8. Teaching for Transfer: Practice
Adrienne Jankens & Thomas Trimble
2013 Fall Orientation

9. Goals
Provide activities that promote high-road transfer across writing contexts (both near and far)
Forward-reaching—preparing for future tasks
Backward-reaching—approaching current tasks using learning from past experiences

10. Scaffolding and Sequencing
Help students learn to write reflection
Use reflection to support the development of other writing projects
Build reflective activities to lead effectively to the final reflective text: the reflective argument essay
Ade

11. Tools Engaging Prior Knowledge: KWL (Ogle) Ade
We could alternate if you like—you present one, I present one, etc.—That’s a good idea!—I’m separating my slides to make this easier to see—integrate yours in whatever way makes sense

12. Tools
Thomas
Journal Prompts
Describe a time when an argument changed your mind.
Describe a time when you encountered a writing task that you did not know how to complete. What did you do?
What was the most difficult part of this assignment? How did you deal with that difficulty?
What part of this assignment is still fuzzy?
Thomas

13. Tools
In-Process Reflections: tuning-in journal, talk-backs
Ade

14. Tools
Thomas
Letter to the Reader (from Sandra Giles’s article “Reflective Thinking and the Revision Process”)
Thomas

15. Tools
Tying to Course Learning Outcomes: strategies for making them accessible
Clear identification on schedule
Discussion of terms (via KWL)
Midterm practice
Ade

16. Tools
Thomas
Outcomes Memo
Thomas

17. Discussion
I think they will have their own questions to ask here, and if they don’t, we can ask them to share practice re: reflection, or to focus on something like student examples and see what questions come from their review of those.

18. Resources 1020 Teaching Resource Site
Bransford and Schwartz. “Rethinking Transfer: A Simple Proposal With Multiple Implications.” Review of Research in Education. 24.1, Jan. 1999: Web.
Giles, Sandra. “Reflective Thinking and the Revision Process.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing. Vol. 1 Ed. Charles Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky.
“Learning and Transfer.” How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School. Eds. John D. Bransford et al. Washington, DC: National Academy Press,
Perkins, D.N. and Gavriel Salomon. “Rocky Road to Transfer: Rethinking Mechanisms of a Neglected Phenomenon.” Educational Psychologist 24.2 (1989):

19. Resources
Nowacek, Rebecca. Agents of Integration: Understanding Transfer as a Rhetorical Act. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, Print.
Reiff, Mary Jo and Anis Bawarshi. “Tracing Discursive Resources: How Students Use Prior Genre Knowledge to Negotiate New Writing Contexts in First-Year Composition.” Written Communication Web.
Roberston, Liane, Kara Taczak, and Kathleen Blake Yancey. “Notes toward a Theory of Prior Knowledge and Its Role in College Composers’ Transfer of Knowledge and Practice.” Composition Forum. 26. Fall Web.
Rounsaville, Angela, Rachel Goldberg, and Anis Bawarshi. “From Incomes to Outcomes: FYW Students’ Prior Genre Knowledge, Meta-Cognition, and the Question of Transfer.” WPA Fall/Winter Web.
Yancey, Kathleen Blake. Reflection in the Writing Classroom. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, Print.