Skip to main content

Currently Skimming:

3 Learning and Transfer
Pages 51-78

The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.


From page 51...
... Some kinds of learning experiences result in effective memory but poor transfer; others produce effective memory plus positive transfer. Thorndike and his colleagues were among the first to use transfer tests to examine assumptions about learning (e.g., Thorndike and Woodworth, 19011.
From page 52...
... " No, what happened was that he learned to use his specific background knowledge to "chunk" information into meaningful groups. The student had extensive knowledge about winning times for famous track races, including the times of national and world records.
From page 53...
... . All new learning involves transfer based on previous learning, and this fact has important implications for the design of instruction that helps students learn.
From page 54...
... They used water jar problems where participants had three jars of varying sizes and an unlimited water supply and were asked to obtain a required amount of water. Everyone received a practice problem.
From page 55...
... Other research studies have shown that additional qualities of initial learning affect transfer and are reviewed next. 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; see Boxes 3.3 and 3.4.
From page 56...
... It has been estimated that world-class chess masters require from 50,000 to 100,000 hours of practice to reach that level of expertise; they rely on a knowledge base containing some 50,000 familiar chess patterns to guide their selection of moves (Chase and Simon, 1973; Simon and Chase, 19731. Much of this 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 (see Chapter 21.
From page 57...
... LEARNING AND TRANSFER BOX3.4 Finding the Area of a Figure 57
From page 58...
... are introduced to organizing principles that they cannot grasp because they lack enough specific knowledge to make them meaningful. Providing students with opportunities to first grapple with specific information relevant to a topic has been shown to create a "time for telling" that enables them to learn much more from an organizing lecture (as measured by subsequent abilities to transfer)
From page 59...
... Group 2 did not read the text but, instead, actively compared simplified data sets from schema experiments on memory and then heard the same lecture as Group 1. Group 3 spent twice as much time as Group 2 working with the data sets but did not receive the organizing lecture.
From page 60...
... In one of the studies on learning LOGO programming (Klahr and Carver, 1988) , the goal was to help students learn to generate "bug-free" instructions for others to follow.
From page 61...
... It is probable, but needs to be verified experimentally, that being "learning oriented" or "performance oriented" is not a stable trait of an individual but, instead, varies across disciplines (e.g., a person may be performance oriented in mathematics but learning oriented in science and social studies or vice versa)
From page 62...
... For example, fifth- and sixth-grade students may learn mathematical concepts of distance-rate-time in the context of solving a complex case involving planning for a boat trip. The findings indicate that if students learn only in this context, they often fail to transfer flexibly to new situations (Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt, 19971.
From page 63...
... Helping students represent their solution strategies at a more general level can help them increase the probability of positive transfer and decrease the degree to which a previous solution strategy is used inappropriately (negative transfer)
From page 64...
... What type of procedure might be used to destroy the tumor with the rays, and at the same time avoid destroying the healthy tissue? Few college students were able to solve this problem when left to their own devices.
From page 65...
... They found that students learned subsequent text editors more rapidly and that the number of procedural elements shared by two text editors predicted the amount of this transfer. In fact, there was large transfer across editors that were very different in surface structures but that had common abstract structures.
From page 66...
... Active Versus Passive Approaches to Transfer It is important to view transfer as a dynamic process that requires learners to actively choose and evaluate strategies, consider resources, and receive feedback. This active view of transfer is different from more static views, which assume that transfer is adequately reflected by learners' abilities to solve a set of transfer problems right after they have engaged in an initial learning task.
From page 67...
... The three major components of reciprocal teaching are instruction and practice with strategies that enable students to monitor their understanding; provision, initially by a teacher, of an expert model of metacognitive processes; and a social setting that enables joint negotiation for understanding. The knowledgeacquisition strategies the students learn in working on a specific text are not acquired as abstract memorized procedures, but as skills instrumental in achieving subject-area knowledge and understanding.
From page 68...
... , as well as in adding a metacognitive component to a computer program designed to help college students learn biology. The value of using video to model important metacognitive learning procedures has also been shown to help learners analyze and reflect on models (Bielaczyc et al., 19951.
From page 69...
... \ Welsher ................. \ ~ 1@ at~ t , ~ I.eage.~ Building on Existing Knowledge Children's early mathematics knowledge illustrates the benefits of helping students draw on relevant knowledge that can serve as a source of transfer.
From page 70...
... The Fish Is Fish scenario is relevant to many additional attempts to help students learn new information. For example, when high school or college physics students are asked to identify the forces being exerted on a ball that is thrown vertically up in the air after it leaves the hand, many mention the "force of the hand" (Clement, 1982a, b)
From page 71...
... Most children bring to their school mathematics lessons the idea that numbers are grounded in the counting principles (and related rules of addition and subtraction)
From page 72...
... For example, a primary school teacher is helping students to understand fractional parts by using what she thinks is a commonplace reference. "Today, we're going to talk about cutting up a Thar American boy, looking puzz Most African American In fact, one of the ways t children is to say that it id pie is the common refer' pump
From page 73...
... Since transfer between tasks is a function of the similarity by transfer tasks and learning experiences, an important strategy for enhancing transfer from schools to other settings may be to better understand the nonschool environments in which students must function. Since these environments change rapidly, it is also important to explore ways to help students develop the characteristics of adaptive expertise (see Chapter 11.
From page 74...
... In similar examples of contextualized reasoning, dairy workers use knowledge, such as the size of milk cases, to make their computational work more efficient (Scribner, 19841; grocery store shoppers use nonschool mathematics under standard supermarket and simulated conditions (Lave, 19881; see Box 3.11. There are potential problems with contextualized reasoning, which are similar to those associated with overly contextualized knowledge in general.
From page 75...
... LEARNING AND TRANSFER BOX3.1O The Cottage Cheese Problem How can you get 3/4 of 2/3 cup of cottage cheese? 3/40f School Mathematics Strategy 3/4x2/3=6/12=1/2cup Fill a cup to the 1/2 mark with cottage cheese.
From page 76...
... 76 HOW PEOPLE LEARN, EXPANDED EDITION BOX3.~] Three Solutions to the Best-Buy Problem Which is the best buy for barbecue sauce?
From page 77...
... The transfer literature also highlights some of the potential limitations of learning in particular contexts. Simply learning to perform procedures, and learning in only a single context, does not promote flexible transfer.
From page 78...
... With multiple contexts, students are more likely to abstract the relevant features of concepts and develop a more flexible representation of knowledge. The use of well-chosen contrasting cases can help students learn the conditions under which new knowledge is applicable.


This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More information on Chapter Skim is available.