W13 TOA: Transfer Presentation

Study Group Name and Number Team 9

Team Leader Laura Heaps

Team Members in Attendance • Casey Humpherys

• Emily Hale
• Hannah Burgess
• Laura Heaps
• London Farnsley
• Maci Ferreira
• Taylar Williams
Team Members Absent

Zoom Link 349 388 2494

Directions: Answer the questions below as a group. Make sure to justify your responses.

1. Discuss the pros and cons of testing in a more formal situation than the regular classroom, e.g.,
a testing center or computer lab in a school. If a student doesn’t perform well in the new
environment, does that mean (s)he did not learn the material? (Slide 14)

Pros: A controlled quiet environment, minimized distractions. Crack down on cheating better, if
you have someone walking around and watching for that.
Cons: Different environment could make it harder for student to recall information. Could cause
more test anxiety, which automatically causes student to do worse on a test based on negative
past experiences. It wouldn’t necessarily mean that the student didn’t learn the material, it
could just be them being impacted negatively by external environment.

2. Discuss how you can use similarities and critical attributes (defining features) to stimulate
transfer in a specific content area other than looking at the difference between genus and
species in biology. (Slide 19)

I think learning the difference between genus and species requires learning the skill of looking at
defining characteristics of something and contrasting to other things. You could teach the
difference between fruits or vegetables in the same way. You could even do types of fruits
within the fruit – stone fruits, berries, etc. Another thing you could do would be looking at the
difference between vowels and consonants.

3. Discuss the possible confusion that could result from their similarities and decide on a strategy
for teaching them so that students would be less likely to confuse the two terms. (Slide 28)
 It could be useful to teach them one day at a time, first learning about genus and then learning
about species by contrasting its difference to species. So in terms of a tomato being a fruit and
not a vegetable that can be confusing, make sure you teach the outlying circumstances like how
a tomato is a fruit but grows in the ground.

4. Create a comprehensive list of each group member's ideas for how to be a pioneer. Do not list
any idea twice, but do not eliminate any idea as being impractical. (Slide 31).

- Wear long dress and bonnet

- Push handcart
- Establish a homestead
- Make a new business
- Invent something new
- Trekking across something
- Being the first in a line of people to do something
- Create something new that is deeper/more complex
- Having an original idea and acting on it
- Farmer

5. Individually fill in the blank in this statement: A pioneer is like ______. (Slide 32).

Laura: an entrepreneur
Taylar: starting something new
Hannah: hard worker
London: an explorer
Casey: getting your hands dirty
Maci: An astronaut discovering something for the first time

6. What are some things you could investigate to see how college students could pioneer new
frontiers in teaching? (Slide 33)

Technology – further advancements specifically. Further advancements in student’s emotional

response to different environments and how it affects performance. More to unlock with
social/emotional learning.

7. Select a concept from a common subject and grade level. Create a metaphor (or simile) for the
concept and explain how you would apply each of the seven steps for facilitating transfer to the
metaphor (or simile) that you created. Label each of the steps. (Slide 38)

The layers of the earth

1. Select a metaphor that fits well

a. The layers of the earth are like a peach
 2. Emphasize the metaphor consistently through the lesson – figuratively not literally
a. Like this peach here you can see this heavy pit is like the dense core. The skin is like
crust and when you peel it back you can see the mantle.
3. Establish the context
a. Crust = skin, mantle = inner peach, outer core = the red flesh close to core, Inner
core = inner peach
b. Peaches have layers, the earth has layers, what would it look like to cut open the
earth?
4. Provide instructions for imagery
a. Imagine you take a bite of a peach, look at all the layers that are inside – look at this
picture, what do you see?

b.
5. Emphasize similarities and differences
a. Both of these things have a pit like center with layers. One is a small edible food,
and one is a huge planet. One core is hot while the other is not.
6. Provide opportunities for rehearsal
a. Can you think of another food that has layers like the earth? Can you draw a picture
of that and label with the earths layers?
7. Beware of mixed metaphors
a. Example could be the earth is like metaphors crossing with eachother and confusing
students.

8. Jeromy, an experienced football player, is learning to play rugby. Briefly explain what factors
from his previous experience might contribute to each of the following in learning to play rugby:
Positive transfer, negative transfer, and zero transfer. For a comparison between the two sports
please reference the American Football Comparison Chart.

Positive transfer: Tackling, you can tackle in both sports.

Negative transfer: the direction; you have to go forward at all times in rugby, and you have to
throw backwards. With rugby you can throw it or kick it, with football you can only throw
Zero transfer: running a play – they would have this skill with either sport

9. Contrast specific and general transfer and give an original example of each.

Specific transfer is like situational information, an example could be learning an organizational

method in highschool for writing essays, and then using that to write essays in college.
 General transfer is learning that can be used across different situations, learning to drive a car,
so you can then drive a boat, a tractor, a 4x4, a semi truck

10. Give an original example of high-road transfer and three suggestions for facilitating it.

High-road transfer, example could be sewing into crocheting, both very specific skills that take
time and mental effort
- Talking about similarities
- Talking about differences
- Encouraging students to practice outside of class
- Constructing samples before sewing a project for practice

11. Briefly explain the value of creating meaningful learning to positive transfer.

Meaningful learning is the most relatable thing for a student, it gives them a personal purpose
and a motivation to learn. If they have that personal tie to it, it makes it easier to remember.
The more interest you have in something the more you will transfer it to storage to recall it and
use it later on.

12. Why is teaching a conceptual framework more valuable for general and high-road transfer than
teaching isolated facts or steps in a procedure?

It’s easier to apply to more things, vs. teaching something that can only be used for one
purpose/lesson.

13. You are teaching elementary-school students to compute the area of geometric figures. They
have been given the formulas for computing the areas of rectangles and squares. Now you give
them a trapezoid and ask them to compute its area. What should you have done to prepare
them to be successful with this problem?

Give them the formula and tell them which parts go into the equation. Show them how to divide
the trapezoid shape into shapes they already know. Show similarities to rectangles.

14. Think of an abstract concept from the subject area of one of the members of your Zoom room.
Explain how you could attach an emotion to that concept to help your students remember it and
be able to transfer their knowledge of it to another situation.

It helps us remember the difference between an acute and a obtuse angle to thing of as a cute
little angle. Have students draw their own picture of something that is cute onto an acute
triangle like draw a cute acute triangle puppy. Have them bring something from home that has
an acute angle and something with an obtuse.
15. Pick another concept that is important to members of your group. Explain how you could bridge
that concept to students’ previous knowledge. Make sure you give an example of each of the
three methods of bridging discussed in this week’s lesson.

Concept: Order of operations

1. Brainstorming: Think of different types of operations that they use in their life and why the
order changes the outcome
2. Analogy: It is like tying your shoes in a certain order, you have to do the steps in an order or
they won’t tie correctly. The order of getting ready, or eating meals.
3. Metacognitive activities: You could have them deliberately do the order of operations
wrong, or another activity wrong like putting their shoes on before their socks. Help them to
understand the order is important.