Summer Literacy Institute 2015

Opening Session:

Teaching for Transfer

Institute Framework

• Welcome–Who is here

• Logistics–The facility–The agenda–Working together

Where we are going

• Increase understanding of learning transfer and its relationship to achieving proficiency

• Increase understanding of complexity and cognitive demand

• Explore high impact instructional strategies that support proficiency of our standards

• Build a meaningful text set• Begin a unit of study that includes bundles of

standards

Where we have been

• Design considerations• Shifts • Complexity• Rigor• All means all

What is Not Covered by the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) is Still Important

From the introduction of the CCSS for English language arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical subjects states that the standards:

• define what all students are expected to know and be able to do, not how teachers should teach

• focus on what is most essential - they are not a set of restrictions

• are not meant to be an exhaustive list of what is taught

• must be complemented by a well-developed, content-rich curriculum

5

Key Shifts of Maine's ELA/literacy standards

Practice with Increasingly

Complex Literary and

Informational Text

Cite Evidence: Write from Sources

Build Content

Knowledge and

Academic Vocabulary

6

TEACHING FOR TRANSFER

What is transfer?

Respond to homework:• Key vocabulary• Critical insights - connections

Turn and talk - as a table group, reach consensus and report one essential understanding about transfer as it relates to learning

Quick write

“Transfer related to reading tends to break down where students fail to use the vocabulary strategies, comprehension strategies, and knowledge gained in school to read, understand, and learn from complex texts.”

(Dewitz and Graves, pg. 154)

Use evidence from the article and your conversation to support or refute the statement.

What is transfer?

• Transfer is the ability to take what one has learned in one context and use it in a new instance.

• Transfer of learning occurs when learning in one context or with one set of materials impacts on performance in another context or with other related materials.

Low Road Transfer (LRT)

• Low Road Transfer, a.k.a. Near Transfer, occurs in similar contexts

• Involves a short leap between initial learning situation and application situation

• Reflects automaticity of learned skill • Situations are so similar that response is

effectively cued• i.e. You drive a Ford Focus and you can also

drive a Nissan Pathfinder without further training

Low Road Transfer Examples

• Elementary– Students learn proper use of capitalization of proper

nouns and apply it each time they write.

• Secondary– Students learn to recognize power struggles within a

society and can independently identify who is oppressed in Night and the Hunger Games and support their claim.

High Road Transfer (HRT)

• High Road Transfer, a.k.a. Far Transfer, occurs much less often than LRT

• Refers to application between contexts that appear to be remote and alien to one another

• Tasks may look completely different but are conceptually similar

• You drive a manual transmission Chevy pickup but need to drive a Massey-Ferguson tractor with three clutches

High Road Transfer Examples

• Elementary– Students learn how to communicate an opinion supported with

textual evidence through the writing of a book review. Later, they transfer this understanding (forming and supporting an evidence-based opinion) to participation in a debate about whether or not students should be allowed outside for recess when the temperature is below 10 degrees F.

• Secondary– Students learn to evaluate peer essays and provide meaningful

feedback for content, structure, style, and rhetoric regardless of course, assignment, or genre of writing.

High or Low?

Utilize the root and suffix of the word “grudgingly” as well as the context of the sentence to determine its meaning: With a sad look on his face, David’s brother grudgingly handed him the car’s remote

control when his turn was over.

High or Low?

Students learn to recognize symbols in The Great Gatsby (the green light, the eyes on the billboard) then present an examination of the use of color

and texture in the graphic novel The United States Constitution.

Wilhelm’s Transfer Principles

Make learning matter by asking the questions or posing the problems that led to the development of the taught

knowledge in the first place.

Wilhelm’s Transfer Principles

Provide real and varied situations for students to learn in, and provide repeated

practice in contexts of actual use.

Web resources, drama, simulations, labs, and workshops all help in this regard.

Wilhelm’s Transfer Principles

Refocus from retention of content to using

content to do real work, thereby developing

strategic capacity instead of just factual

recall and skills.

This moves learning from the schoolish to the toolish (Smith and Wilhelm, 2002).

Wilhelm’s Transfer Principles

Focus

Do less to achieve more.

ELA/Literacy Standards

What ELA/Literacy standards align to the learning experience you have just had around the concept of transfer?

Let’s take a break