Education for Life and Work Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century (2012) / Chapter Skim
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4 Perspectives on Deeper Learning
4 Perspectives on Deeper Learning
Pages 69-100
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From page 69... ...
A CLASSIC CONCERN: LEARNING FOR TRANSFER The committee views the broad call for deeper learning and 21st century skills as reflecting a long-standing issue in education and training -- the desire that individuals develop transferable knowledge and skills. Associated with this is the challenge of creating learning environments that support development of the cognitive, intrapersonal, and interpersonal 69
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From page 70... ...
When the goal is to prepare students to be able to be successful in solving new problems and adapting to new situations, then deeper learning is called for. Calls for such 21st century skills as innovation, creativity, and creative problem solving can also be seen as calls for deeper learning -- helping students develop transferable knowledge that can be applied to solve new problems or respond effectively to new situations.
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From page 71... ...
The authors observed positive transfer, both from one line editor to the next and from the line editors to the screen editor, as indicated by reductions in total learning time, keystrokes, residual errors, and other measures in comparison to the control groups. They proposed that the very high level of transfer from one line editor to the next line editor was due to the fact that, although the surface features of the commands used in the two editors were different, the underlying principles were nearly identical.
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From page 72... ...
and meaningful learning (which involved deeper understanding of the structure of the problem and the solution method) , and they provided evidence that meaningful learning leads to transfer, whereas rote learning does not (Katona, 1940)
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From page 73... ...
From the sociocultural perspective, the disciplines are distinct communities that engage in shared practices of ongoing knowledge creation, understanding, and revision. It is now widely recognized that science is both a body of established knowledge and a social process through which individual scientists and communities of scientists continually create, revise, and elaborate scientific theories and ideas (Polanyi, 1958; National Research Council, 2007)
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From page 74... ...
We define deeper learning not as a product but as processing -- both within individual minds and through social interactions in a community -- and 21st century competencies as the learning outcomes of this processing in the form of transferable knowledge and skills that result. The transferable knowledge and skills encompass all three domains of competency: cognitive, intrapersonal, and interpersonal, in part reflecting the sociocultural perspective of learning as a process grounded in social relationships.
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From page 75... ...
Although few people can remember a randomly generated string of 16 digits, anyone with a Figure 4-1 slight knowledge of American history is likely to be able to recall the string 1492-1776-1865-1945. ThisPortrait above is just one example of an important concept: Landscape below 1 his T section of the chapter draws heavily on National Research Council (2001, pp.
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From page 76... ...
An important distinction in cognitive content is between domain-general knowledge, which is applicable to a range of situations, and domain-specific knowledge, which is relevant to a particular problem area. Domain-General Knowledge and Problem-Solving Processes Cognitive research has shown that general problem-solving procedures, not specific to a particular domain of knowledge, are generally slow and inefficient.
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From page 77... ...
Paradoxically, although one of the hallmarks of expertise is access to a vast store of strong methods in a particular domain, both children and scientists fall back on their repertoire of weak methods when faced with truly novel problems (Klahr and Simon, 1999)
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From page 78... ...
Research on how people develop expertise has provided considerable insight into the nature of thinking and problem solving. Although every person cannot be expected to become an expert in a given domain, findings from cognitive science about the nature of expertise can shed light on what successful learning looks like and guide the development of effective instruction and assessment.
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From page 79... ...
Practice and Feedback3 Every domain of knowledge and skill has its own body of concepts, factual content, procedures, and other items that together constitute the knowledge of that field. In many domains, including areas of literature, 3 his T section of the chapter draws heavily on National Research Council (2001, pp.
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From page 80... ...
The power law of practice is fully consistent with theories of cognitive skill acquisition, according to which individuals go through different stages in acquiring the specific knowledge associated with a given cognitive skill (e.g., Anderson, 1982)
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From page 81... ...
Cognitive psychology and its implications. Permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.
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From page 82... ...
Third, the research suggests that deeper learning requires extensive practice, aided by explanatory feedback that helps learners correct errors and practice correct procedures, and that multimedia learning environments can provide such feedback. Fourth, the work of the gestalt psychologists discussed above allows us to distinguish between rote learning and meaningful learning (or deeper learning)
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From page 83... ...
is the learner's ability to transfer what was learned to new situations. TABLE 4-1 Three Types of Learning Outcomes Type of Outcome Retention Performance Transfer Performance No learning Poor Poor Rote learning Good Poor Meaningful (deeper)
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From page 84... ...
Table 4-2 outlines the cognitive processing of the five types of integrated knowledge and dispositions that, working closely together, support deeper learning and transfer. Deeper learning involves coordinating all five types of knowledge.
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From page 85... ...
Novices tend to create categories based on surface features, whereas experts create categories based in structural features. Novices need to expend conscious effort in applying procedures, whereas experts have automated basic procedures, thereby freeing them of the need to expend conscious effort in applying them.
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From page 86... ...
AN ILLUSTRATION OF DEEPER LEARNING AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF 21ST CENTURY COMPETENCIES Before turning to discussions of deeper learning and 21st century competencies in the intrapersonal and interpersonal domains, we offer a description of a learning environment designed to develop mathematics competencies. Although the instruction focused on knowledge of high school mathematics, the teaching practices used to advance this goal led to development of intrapersonal and interpersonal competencies as well.
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From page 87... ...
By the end of year 1, the Railside students were approaching comparable levels in algebra to students at the other two schools. By the end of year 2, the Railside students' scores were significantly higher than those of the students in the traditional mathematics classes.
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From page 88... ...
Railside students also scored higher than students at the other two schools on the California Standards test, a curriculum-aligned test, although they did not do as well on the CAT 6, a standardized state test, perhaps because that test requires strong English language skills and cultural knowledge. In addition, the Railside approach was successful at improving equity.
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From page 89... ...
We also briefly describe the broader construct of self-regulation and research in child and adolescent development and economics that suggest that competence in self-regulation transfers across a variety of life situations. The Role of Beliefs and Motivation in Learning In our discussion of the cognitive domain above, we noted that motivation helps learners to mentally organize and integrate information in the cognitive processing that is central to deeper learning (this is sometimes referred to as "generative processing")
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From page 90... ...
. The authors found that relatively brief interventions can lead to large and sustained gains in student achievement, as students develop durable, transferable intrapersonal skills and apply them to new learning challenges in a positive, self-reinforcing cycle of academic improvement.
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From page 91... ...
is commonly used to refer to the selection and monitoring processes, as well as to more general activities of reflecting on and directing one's own thinking. Experts have strong metacognitive skills (Hatano, 1990)
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From page 92... ...
; monitoring (keeping track of progress in a learning activity) ; regulation (using, managing, or changing learning strategies to achieve the learning goals; and reflection (generating new knowledge about the learning tasks or oneself as a learner)
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From page 93... ...
concluded that the conceptual similarities between 21st century skills and dimensions of self-regulated learning lend support to the critical importance of competencies such as self-direction, adaptability, flexibility, and collaboration, and suggested drawing on the self-regulated learning research to improve understanding of the 21st century skills. The construct of self-regulated learning has been used to design instructional interventions that have improved academic outcomes among diverse populations of students, from early elementary school through college.
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From page 94... ...
. In addition, children who are weak in self-regulation, as indicated by persistently high levels of antisocial behavior across the elementary school years, are significantly less likely to graduate from high school and to attend college than children who never had these problems (Duncan and Magnuson, 2011)
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From page 95... ...
Agreement on definitions is an essential first step toward teaching and learning of self-regulation. THE INTERPERSONAL DOMAIN The sociocultural perspective that learning is "situated" within unique social contexts and communities illuminates the importance of the interpersonal domain for deeper learning.
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From page 96... ...
from others. Social contexts for learning make the thinking of the learner apparent to teachers and other students so that it can be examined, questioned, and built on as part of constructive learning.
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From page 97... ...
IMPLICATIONS FOR INSTRUCTION Findings from the research reviewed in this chapter have important implications for how to organize teaching and learning to facilitate deeper learning and development of transferable 21st century competencies. Here, we briefly summarize some of the implications, and in Chapter 6, we discuss in greater detail how to design instruction to support deeper learning.
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From page 98... ...
An appropriate instructional goal for extraneous overload situations is to reduce extraneous processing (thereby freeing up cognitive capacity for essential and generative processing)
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From page 99... ...
Sociocultural perspectives on learning illuminate the potential for developing intrapersonal and interpersonal skills within instruction focused on cognitive mastery of school subjects; such perspectives provide further evidence that skills in all three domains play important roles in deeper learning and development of transferable knowledge. • Conclusion: The process of deeper learning is essential for the development of 21st century competencies (including both skills and knowledge)
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