1. Mapping for Learning: Learning and Transfer
Based on:
National Research Council. (2000). How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School. National Academy Press. Washington, D. C.
This part contains summary of
3. Learning and Transfer
Summer 2001
Mara Alagic

2. Transfer
Transfer can be defined as the ability to extend what has been learned in one context to new contexts
Measures of transfer play an important role in assessing the quality of people’s learning experiences.
Assumptions about transfer accompany the belief that it is better to broadly “educate” people than simply “train” the m to perform particular tasks (Broudy, 1977)
Summer 2001
Mara Alagic

3. Key Characteristics of Learning and Transfer
Initial learning
Abstract representations versus contextualized knowledge
Transfer - an active, dynamic process rather than a passive end-product
New learning involves transfer based on previous learning
Summer 2001
Mara Alagic

4. Elements that Promote Initial Learning
Understanding versus memorizing
Time to learn
Feedback
Motivation
ELEMENTS THAT PROMOTE INITIAL LEARNING
Understanding versus memorizing - Transfer is affected by the degree to which people learn with understanding rather than merely memorize sets of facts or follow a fixed set of procedures.
Examples: throwing darts at a target underwater - understanding refraction of light; Differences between veins and arteries
Time to learn - It takes time to learn complex subject matter: Example - chess masters: “Much of the time involves the development of pattern recognition skills that support the fluent identification of meaningful patterns of information plus knowledge of their implications for future outcomes.”
Feedback
Motivation affects the amount of time that people are willing to devote to learning. However, challenges must be at the proper level of difficulty in order to be and to remain motivating (too easy - boring; too difficult - frustration)
“performance” or “learning” oriented (often depends on the topic or other factors)
Social opportunities also affect motivation;Usefulness
Summer 2001
Mara Alagic

5. Other Factors that Influence Transfer
Context - Transfer across contexts
Multiple representations
What is learned versus what is tested
Abstracted representations become components of schemata
Dynamic process
Metacognition
Context - People can learn in one context, yet fail to transfer to another context
Transfer across contexts is especially difficult when a subject is taught only in a single context rather than in multiple contexts (Bjork & Holyoak, 1983)
How to deal with lack of flexibility: from simple case to similar case(s); what if …?; generalization
Multiple representations
Learning and transfer conditions - Transfer is always a function of relationships between what is learned and what is tested (Example - fortress problem and cancer problem, p. 64)
Studies show that abstracted representations do not remain as isolated instances of events but become components of larger, related events, schemata (Holyoak, 1984; Novick & Holyoak, 1991)
Active versus passive approaches to transfer - a dynamic process - with prompting, transfer can improve quite dramatically
Transfer and metacognition - EXAMPLES:Reciprocal teaching - instruction and practice; provision; social setting. Procedural facilitation - prompts learners to adopt the metacognitive activities embedded - modeling, scaffolding, and taking turns. Heuristic methods for mathematical problem solving (Alan Schoenfeld, 1983, 85, 91) - modeling, coaching, and scaffolding
Summer 2001
Mara Alagic

6. All New Learning Involves Transfer
Building on existing knowledge
Understanding conceptual change
Transfer and cultural practices
Between school and everyday life
Metacognitive approach
This principle that people learn by using what they know to construct new understandings has a number of implications for educational practices.
Building on existing knowledge - Without specific guidance from teachers, students may fail to connect everyday knowledge to subjects taught in school.
Understanding conceptual change
Transfer and cultural practices (difference in narrative between anglo- and african- american)
Transfer between school and everyday life
Metacognitive approach
Summer 2001
Mara Alagic