Transfer Tasks
A test of whether your students learning with Understanding/Rote
Memorization can involve having students applying
what they learned to a similar but not identical situation.
If they can do this, they have "transferred"
their learning from one context to another. Harvard's
David Perkins describes an example of "Near Transfer",
where the new situation or problem is quite similar
to the original settings for learning an idea -- putting
on a golf green. "Far Transfer" involves applying
a skill in a quite different and new subject and context.
You could say that the transfer of a learned procedure
happens, for instance, when someone applies a brainstorming
strategy that they learned in when designing a hiking
pack to solving a problem at work like making lots of
copies in a short period of time or fixing a broken
table at a wedding.
The two teachers shown in this page's movies had their
classes do a follow-up transfer task after finishing
the Model
Parachute activity. In MOVIE 1, Ed Goldman has his
students use the knowledge and skills they developed
when designing parachutes in making a toy that utilizes
a chute in its design. In MOVIE 2, Earl Carlyon has
his students optimize the flight of a paper helicopter,
after having made their own model parachutes. A third
transfer task for Parachute to consider is the Maplecopter
investigation, where students explore the factors that
affect the motion of the falling Maple seeds and build
models to simulate their spinning flight.
Print out this Maple Copter activity sheet that was developed
by Michal Lomask and others at the Connecticut State Department
of Education.
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