Transfer


 * Transfer:** Lorna, Stephanie, Derek, & Courtney

The goal of any educational process is not to simply gather information and knowledge on a variety of subjects, but also to be able to draw connections between such knowledge, and apply them to the acquisition of new knowledge and in other contexts of one’s life. Transfer can be defined broadly as the influence of prior knowledge, skills, strategies, or principles on new learning, which can also serve to guide actions and influence decisions. It is essential to note that as educators our actions and lesson design must promote positive transfer, the process in which previous learning actually facilitates new learning, as research has show the process to not be simply automatic. We must understand that all too often improper design facilities negative transfer, which suggests previous learning to actually hinder the learning of new tasks. Furthermore, failure to incorporate meaning and purpose to a lesson may lead to zero transfer, where previous learning has no effect on one’s actions, decisions, or comprehension.

There are general and specific views of transfer. The doctrine of formal discipline, which was popular at the turn of the 20th century, is a general view of transfer. The idea suggests that studying subjects like Latin and geometry improve logical thinking and this improvement of mental thinking is transferred to other disciplines. The theory of identical elements is a specific view of transfer. This theory claims that transfer occurs when skills or behaviors from a new task have similar elements to the skills and behaviors of a task already mastered. An example of this would be how knowledge of adding single digit numbers transfers to adding numbers with more than one digit (2 or 3-column addition).

To further break down the topic of transfer we must consider the differences between high-road and low-road transfer. Low-road transfer us the spontaneous and automatic transfer of highly practiced skills. There is little need to expand and develop ideas because these ideas become automatic, almost second nature. Reading and math are examples of these low-road transfer situations because they are examples of automatic skills that can readily transfer across multiple disciplines with little thought. On the other hand, high-road transfer involves an individual purposely applying general knowledge in one situation to a different situation. In these types of situations the concept of mindful abstraction is often mentioned. One needs to retrieve meaningful information from a certain context and apply that to another context. This often involves more metacognition and a focus on problem solving and critical thinking. Students need to be actively thinking about their own processes and ways of thinking in order to reach a higher level.

Teaching principles that facilitate transfer include, developing automaticity of skills. To help students achieve automaticity, they need to practice automaticity of academic skills. Practice needs to be reflective rather than rote, it much occur in a variety of contexts and involve overlearning, in which students engage in continues practice after they have demonstrated mastery. Meaningful and fun academic tasks such as problem solving, collaborative activities, computer games, and classroom activities can lead to automaticity. When working with lower achieving students, teachers are encouraged to create problem-solving tasks that remove the constraints of automaticity, and balance basic skills instruction with teaching methods that focus on complex cognitive skills. Teachers should also promote meaningful learning by using a variety of techniques such as taking inventory of the student prior knowledge, requiring students to construct relationships between new information and their prior knowledge. Also, providing students with questions to answer as they read their textbooks, teaching by analogy, using manipulative and worked-out examples for practice problem solving. Successful transfer requires the student’s ability to identify appropriate transfer situations, and teaching metacognition strategies to recognize transfer situations is important. By teaching students exactly what transfer is, leads to greater transfer on novel problems compared to students not instructed about transfer. Instruction and practice in metacognitive strategies, such as having students cue themselves to transfer, can facilitate transfer too. Finally, motivating students to value learning can lead to transfer opportunities. Encouraging students to set master goals, which focuses on mastering a tasks, growing intellectually, and acquiring new skills and knowledge. Teachers are also encouraged to capitalize on students’ natural interests when teaching new topics, and to use techniques to create situational interest, which is an immediate interest in a particular lesson.