What We’ve Been Reading: Transfer
On Fridays, when Long-View teachers meet as a team, we often begin with a discussion of an article on a topic that we are considering. This year, Ms. Fleury kicked off the series with “Transfer as the Goal of Education,” an article that synthesizes research on the difficulty of using prior learning in new situations.
Transfer is a concept that we refer to daily, both in academic blocks with learners and among ourselves as we analyze the work of learners through informal discussion. In a Long-View Math Block, for instance, we coach learners to see how they transfer understanding from the community conversations in a Concept Study or Thought Exercise over to the work they do with partners on problem sets in Studio. But we also work to foster the transfer of larger ideas across disciplines, across days, across years. A discussion of the transformative power of awe in Campfire pops up as the practice of “Reading with Awe” in Literacy Block. We see learners take what they heard about growth mindset in Math Block with them as they power through an obstacle in designing an experiment in Science.
When we discuss a shared text on Fridays, we don’t know exactly where the conversation will go. With the article about transfer, we began by thinking about the work a learner does when she encounters something new. The impulse to draw on prior experiences is a natural one; the learner might ask herself, “What do I know?” Next, she might move to “What do I still need to figure out?” Faced with difficulty, she might shut down. We talked about how, as teachers, we could facilitate transfer in these moments.
One Long-View teacher lifted up another teacher’s practice of asking, “What could be our opening move here?” This phrase employs a chess metaphor (a word that encodes transfer in its meaning, a “carrying over”). A learner might not be able to see his way through the whole problem, but might remember a way to begin – not “the” opening move, but “an” opening move. Here, recalling the give and take of game play facilitates openness toward engaging with a new intellectual challenge.
In our conversations around shared texts, we don’t always agree with everything the authors put forward. In “Transfer as the Goal of Education,” we quibbled with the pedagogical model known as Gradual Release of Responsibility, in which “independent use of all strategies” is considered to be the gauge of mastery. To espouse this goal, we felt, would be to disregard the indispensable role that we hope collaboration will always play in the intellectual lives of our learners. We want our learners to independently negotiate collaborative situations.
From their experiences at Long-View, we hope that our learners will transfer the practice of reaching out to enrich and deepen understanding; when they’re struggling, we hope they will create a community that will help them.
In an upcoming Friday meeting, our team will re-open the discussion of a longtime Long-View favorite, “What Critical Thinking Is,” by the British scholar Alec Fisher. And we’ll continue to bring diverse texts to the table, like the excerpts from the German sociologist Hartmut Rosa’s book on resonance and Dr. Becky Kennedy’s parenting book, Good Insidee, both of which we discussed last year. We’ve sometimes gone on to follow those threads in Community Conversations with Long-View parents. We’ll keep you posted on other intriguing texts as they come to our attention!
