Activating potential through
LEARNING TRANSFER
Making Sense of Current Events Through Learning Transfer
This post is written by contributor Trevor Aleo. All student samples are shared with permission. My students didn’t come in to class today talking about the shows they binged, gifts they received, or books they read over break—they were too busy discussing #WW3. Some...
Here’s Why You Should Teach for Transfer
The following article was originally shared on the Corwin Connect Blog on October 21st, 2019 by Trevor Aleo. It’s 1:52pm on the last day of school. There are about two dozen sixteen-year-olds in my 7th block class sitting in a giant circle. No one is on their cell...
What Is Schema? How Do We Help Students Build It?
This post was originally shared on Peter DeWitt's EdWeek blog on October 20th, 2019 by Julie Stern. Have you ever been frustrated by how quickly students seem to forget what you've taught them? Or by their struggles to use what they've learned in one context in a new,...
CREATING 21ST-CENTURY PROBLEM SOLVERS
Learning Transfer Cycle
Learning transfer happens when students apply their understanding of conceptual relationships to tackle a new context. Asking students to respond to conceptual questions helps to guide their thinking. We can use a continuous cycle to ensure students have repeated exposure and practice in refining their understanding through multiple contexts.
Learning Transfer Spectrum
The Where Innovation Happens graphic illustrates how learning moves from learning transfer in the classroom to applying that knowledge to real world problems. Once we transfer to similar tasks, we can move to more complex scenarios with more authentic audiences, such as writing a persuasive piece about a public problem and submitting it to a local newspaper.
Want to learn more?
Innovators don’t invent without understanding how the world works. With this foundation, they apply conceptual understanding to solve problems. We want students to not only retain ideas, but relate them to other things they encounter, using each new situation to add nuance and sophistication to their thinking. Discover how to help learners uncover conceptual relationships and transfer them to new situations.