krg presentation oct 4 2013
DESCRIPTION
Presentation at KRG by Dr. O and Nastassia Hamor.TRANSCRIPT
Nastassia Hamor, M.Sc. Candidate in Kinesiology
&
Jenny O, Ph.D.
California State University, East BayKRG Meeting – October 4, 2013
A CRITICAL DISCUSSION OF SKILL TRANSFER, ANALOGICAL TRANSFER, AND EFFECTIVE
TEACHING METHODS
Teaching for Transfer
Special thank you to:
Ariana Strickland, B.Sc. Candidate in Kinesiology
and Chris Willis, B.Sc., Kinesiology
“A main reason for formal education is to facilitate
learning in situations outside of school.”
Klausmeier, 1961, p. 352
“…BUT I DON’T WANNA GO TO SCHOOL!!”
• Using something learned in one situation or domain and using it to help performance in another situation or domain (Singley & Anderson, 2012)
• Two types of transfer relevant to effective teaching:
1. Skills transfer: Solving a novel problem by using specific ‘how-to’ information (i.e., procedural information) learned in some other context, situation, or domain.
2. Analogical transfer: Solving a novel problem by drawing an analogy to a similar problem that has a known solution. We like to think of this as “strategy transfer”.
WHAT IS TRANSFER?
EXAMPLE OF SKILL TRANSFER
Image from PHE Canada
Suppose you are a doctor faced with a patient who has a malignant tumor in his stomach. It is impossible to operate on the patient, but unless the tumor is destroyed the patient will die. There is a kind of ray which can be used to destroy the tumor. If the ray reaches the tumor at a sufficiently high intensity, the tumor will be destroyed. Unfortunately, at this intensity, the healthy tissue that the ray passes through on the way to the tumor will also be destroyed. At lower intensities the ray is harmless to healthy tissue, but will not affect the tumor either. What type of procedure might be used to destroy the tumor with the ray, and at the same time avoid destroying the healthy tissue?
(Duncker, 1945)
ANALOGICAL (STRATEGY) TRANSFER EXAMPLE:
A MEDICAL DILEMMA
A general has to capture a fortress. Land mines prevent him from sending
his full army down one road. To successfully capture the fortress, the general divides his army into smaller groups that move down several roads
and arrive at the fortress simultaneously.
(Duncker, 1945)
USE THIS AS AN ANALOGY:
USING ANALOGICAL TRANSFER TO SOLVE A
MEDICAL DILEMMA:
Tumor
AS TEACHERS, DO WE EFFECTIVELY MAKE USE OF
TRANSFER?
• ‘School builds life skills’ hypothesis: Exposure to the school environment and experience develops intangible life skills and strategies (LSS) such as:
• Basic skills (reading, writing, arithmetic, etc.),
• Complex skills (cooperation, personal responsibility, integrity, etc.), and,
• Performance strategies (problem solving and self-regulation methods, group work and leadership skills, etc.)
• We (largely) assume that these types of skills and strategies will transfer ‘automatically’ when in other life situations.
SKILLS AND STRATEGIES LEARNED IN SCHOOL TRANSFER TO LIFE…?
• The Bad News: Simply being exposed to the school experience does not ‘guarantee’ the development of transferable LSS.
• The Good News: As a teacher, you can increase the chances that transferable LSS will be developed by ‘teaching for transfer’.
TRANSFER OF LSS ARE (MOST OFTEN) NOT ‘AUTOMATIC’, ESPECIALLY WHEN
UNDER PRESSURE
AS TEACHERS, HOW DO WE TEACH FOR TRANSFER?
1. Provide many opportunities for varied retrieval.• More retrieval = stronger memory trace = better-quality
future retrieval
2. Use a random retrieval schedule*.• Random retrieval = use of short and long term memory
systems = ↑ learning and retention (*Note: better performance in the future, but poorer performance during practice phase)
3. Have learners translate verbal explanations into visual models and vice-versa.• Translation tasks challenge both information processing
channels in humans (rather than just one) = stronger mental representation = ↑ learning and retention
RESEARCH-BASED SUGGESTIONS (HALPERN & HAKEL, 2003)
4. Do a ‘baseline test’ of prior knowledge and attitudes.• Can identify potential misconceptions to address and ↑
accuracy of learner progress evaluations.
5. Less is more. Focus on teaching the ‘need to know’ things.• Discussing minutiae takes attentional focus away from the
crucial elements of the thing being taught and eats up limited attentional capacity of learners.
6. Get your students engaged in the learning environment.• What you do as a teacher is less important than what you
have them do, as the learner.
RESEARCH-BASED SUGGESTIONS (HALPERN & HAKEL, 2003)
AN EXAMPLE OF A ‘TEACHING FOR TRANSFER’
MULTIDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH PROJECT
Are there instances of teaching that you have observed in your KIN-field of
interest that represent ineffective ‘teaching for transfer’?
What are some specific ways that you might be able to use this
multidisciplinary approach (combining Kinesiology expertise and education
expertise) to make you more effective at your current or future career?
DISCUSSION:
DISCUSSION:
Do you see any interesting potential future teaching-for-transfer studies or experiments that the KRG may want to
pursue in the future?
