8 Ways To Transfer Knowledge.

 One thing students have difficulty doing is transferring their knowledge from the textbook to other parts of their lives even with real world examples.  Often, students are unable to see the direct link between the textbook and real life but there are ways to help students learn to transfer their knowledge so it becomes habit.

One issue is that memory relies on context which makes it harder for the brain to transfer material learned in a classroom to a work environment.  So one has to learn how to take prior knowledge and give the information a new context so it applies to the new situation.

1.  When teaching new material have students suggest ways it applies to either possible future jobs or life before tying it to their long term or short term goals.  Teachers can suggest connections but if the students do not provide their own connection, they find it more difficult to transfer knowledge because they see no relevance.  In addition, when students find relevance to the material, they are able to apply it to other situations.

2. Incorporate activities where students are able to reflect on the new material to see if they understand the concept in depth.  Then they need to explain it to themselves because this offers them the opportunity to discover if they have misconceptions, correct them which leads to a deeper understanding.  Furthermore, when students work on explaining it to themselves while using their own words, it is easier for them to connect it to previous knowledge while transferring it to a new situation.

3. Have students use a variety of media to learn the material.  This means using text, videos, audio, and other methods so students are able to retain more material and score higher when tested on the material.  Visuals can make it easier for students to learn or at least they perceive it that way.

4. Help students change the way they study so its more random rather than being at the same place, with the same music, at the same time everyday.  Although changing the place, time, and way of studying is more difficult initially, it is easier to retain the information later on.  This change also called "desirable difficulties" actually leads to a deeper learning which is what students want.

5. It is important for students to learn to identify any gaps they have in their foundation because these gaps make it more difficult to transfer knowledge. Furthermore, it allows students to strengthen their knowledge based once these gaps have been identified.  One way to identify gaps is to take practice tests because tests also identify topics students have mastered so they can focus only on the gaps.

6.  Teach students to set both learning goals and success criteria because it tells students what they are going to get out of their learning and how they know when they learned it.  Goals need to be realistic and specific so the goals can be met.  A realistic goal might be learning all the facts above  7 x 7 over the next 6 weeks because you know you struggle with those and you've set a reasonable time period to do this.

7.  Help students learn to generalize the knowledge from the classroom to a different situation.  An example of this might be taking what they learned about inequalities in the classroom and find as many situations in real life that are described by inequalities such as filling a gas tank, the height restriction of a amusement park ride, or buying patterns on sale.

8. Every day, have students find situations to apply what they learned.  These situations should be outside of the classroom such as buying enough pizza's for a party and thinking of this as using an inequality or look at starting a business in town and calculating the startup costs.  Finding real life applications of the material provides that direct connection between the classroom and application to work.

These are some ways for students to learn to transfer what they've learned in the classroom to other situations such as a work environment.  Furthermore, it prepares them so future employers are more likely to feel as if the student is ready to step into the company.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.

More on Transferring.

  It is well known children struggle to transfer what they've learned to other situations.  If you read Friday's entry, you know one thought is we teach clean neat math in class but real applications are a lot messier.

Students often have difficulty figuring out how their prior knowledge applies to the new situation.  They have trouble recognizing cues such as if we looked at a pay as you go plan with a specific price for a certain amount of data.  The equation might be $35 for the base + $5 per half gig of data added or 35 + 5x = the amount.

This is a simple linear equation but my students won't realize that because all the problems they've seen are only symbols rather than seeing a context.  They don't know how to relate the general equation to the specifics.  I will be the first to admit, I do not teach it the way I should.  I've only recently started looking at specifics so I can change my teaching to help students learn cues.

According to something I read, it is important to use the "I do, we do, you do" type of teaching, also known as model, guided practice, independent practice.  I know I should be doing this more but it always seems like I have to leave the classroom to help test students during one of those mandated tests we have to administer.  You have to practice anything to master it.

It is also suggested, the instructor assess how students are doing on learning to transfer knowledge but do it without grading.  This allows the teacher to determine what needs to be done next.  One way to do this is to give them questions in an unfamiliar format with no cues on what it relates to.  Review how they attempted the problem and analyze that to see what the next step is.  Were they able to figure out the type of task?  Did they choose the correct tool?


Finally, change the set-up so they see that prior learning appears in many different forms.  Research indicates they need to see the change in setting, format, context, and language so students are more flexible in their thinking and accessing prior knowledge.

Tomorrow I'll finish off this topic.  I'm spending three days on it because most curriculums do not spend enough time on building transfer so as a teacher, I think its important to learn what we can do to improve student transference. 

Let me know what you think.

Transfering Knowledge From Math to Other Subjects.

  Math is one of those subjects which provide a foundation for science, engineering, statistics, and other professions.  It has been noticed that students often are able to perform the mathematics in their math class but when required to perform the math in another subject, they cannot do it. 

I've seen it myself.  When students are required to perform conversions such as inches to feet or centimeters to meters in science they struggle but they can do it in math.  They even struggle when trying to solve a linear equation in science they easily solved in math.

There have been several studies on why students have difficulty transferring the knowledge between the math classroom and other subjects.  The results are quite interesting, especially as factors can start as early as pre-school.

We all know that mathematics has its own language which can be quite specialized or at least have meanings different from conversational use.  One researcher discovered a better indicator of success is the amount of math vocabulary a child has.  If a child does not understand basic words such as "plus" or "times" they have difficulty learning math.  In addition, with out the basic vocabulary, they have difficulty expressing the answers.

Its also been discovered the way a concept is presented can improve a students ability to know when and how to apply it to a situation.  The type of practice does make a difference. Rather than focusing on the symbolic practice, expand it to problems which help students see the underlying relationships among the numbers.  In other words, if you are making paint and you change the ratios of the basic colors, you change the final color.  You would have students use a simulation to practice doing this so they see how the changes in the ratios, change the color.

Another observation boils down to the way students practice the material in "clean" situations while most of the time, the applications are actually "messier" and they don't know how to move from the clean to messy situation.  The clean situation is really just drilling while the messier is application.

It is recommended that teachers teach and test understanding when applied to various situation to help transfer their knowledge. In addition, it is suggested the teacher establish and highlight the goal of transference to the students.  It is important to visit and revisit the goal.

Furthermore, students need to judge what skills should be used under which situation so they can transfer knowledge. One way is to model think alouds so students observe the process in action.  Then have them practice this skill with immediate feedback so they learn how to apply their knowledge to a situation.  This helps develop their transfer knowledge skill.

This is focusing on one specific technique to help develop transference of knowledge.  I'll touch on more later on next week.  I hope you all have a good day.  Let me know what you think about this topic.