How People Learn - KeynesYouDigIt/Knowledge GitHub Wiki
Learning: From Speculation to Science
How Experts Differ From Novices
Learning and Transfer
- Transfer: Using skills learned in one context in another
- Vertical transfer: Writing letters to writing words
- Near transfer: One school task and a similar school task
- Far transfer: School settings to non-school settings
- Negative transfer: Doing worse because you're applying a solution that doesn't work in a new context
- Some activites result in good memory, but poor transfer
- Many assessments accurately assess memory, but poorly assess transfer
- "Formal discipline" (eg. learning latin, math) didn't transfer particularly well
- People got better at memorizing number sequences over time with chunking, but it didn't improve their ability to remember letter sequences
- Facts and skills (memorization and practice) don't drive transfer
- You need initial learning before you can transfer
- Overly contextualized knowledge reduces transfer
- Transfer is a dynamic process, not an end result
- Learning something new involves transfer from previous learning
Elements that promote initial learning
You need to have adequately mastered a subject before you can transfer it.
Understanding vs. Memorizing
- Memorizing a fact isn't the same as knowing that that thing is true, and being able to solve problems with it
- Memorizing and understanding both perform well on the initial task, but only understanding transfers (vs. "We haven't had that yet")
Time to Learn
- You need adequate time to practice to develop fluency- no shortcuts. This is hindered by attempts to cram too many topics in or condense the timeline.
- Students will learn only a disconnected set of facts
- You also need to give them enough time to process information, or their brains won't have adequate time to process the information
Beyond "Time on Task"
- Use monitoring techniques to find out how you're doing on your own progress, but measure the end goal (when/where/how to use the knowledge they have) not just memorization. You can trick yourself into thinking you've integrated something you haven't from context clues (name of the chapter you're on, etc.)
- Use contrasting cases to make the features of the new learning stick out
- Transfer is improved by actively pointing out opportunities for transfer
Motivation to Learn
- Affects the time someone will dedicate to learning
- Being learning-oriented means liking new challenges, being performance-oriented means being too worried about making errors to learn
- Being able to share what you've learned increases motivation (capstones?)
- People are motivated when they see what they'll be able to do and the impact that can have on other people
Other Factors that influence transfer
Context
- People able to solve in one context and not another (doing sales vs. taking a test, vice-versa)
- Transfer is hard without experiencing multiple contexts
Solutions:
- Give them one context, and then ask them to solve a similar problem in a different context
- Give them "what if?" problems in the original context to make their learning more flexible
- Give them several contexts and make them make the abstraction
Problem Representations
- Start specific and get more general and abstract over time
Relationships between learning and transfer conditions
- The amount of transfer is proportional to the amount of overlap between the learned and the new
Active vs. passive approaches to transfer
- Transfer should be viewed as increased speed in learning a new domain, not just the initial performance
- Calculus helps with learning physics, but not necessarily on the first day
- With prompting, transfer can improve substantially
- You can assess how well a student's learning has prepared them for transfer by using "graduated prompting" and counting the amount of help that was needed to transfer
Transfer and metacognition
- Transfer is improved by helping students become more aware of themselves as learners
- Having them teach what they've learned
- Have them follow an expert model thought process
- The goal is to have them ask themselves the self-regulatory questions as the teacher fades out
Learning as transfer from previous experiences
Even the initial learning involves transfer, because it's based on what they came in with. Specifically:
- They may come in with useful knowledge that has not been activated
- They may misinterpret something because of a previous mental model
- They may struggle with practices that differ from what's practiced in their community
Building on existing knowledge
- Tap into what they already know with metaphor
Understanding conceptual change
- People misapply their existing mental models
- Try to uncover their existing mental models
- Make students thinking visible to uncover their faulty conceptions
Transfer and cultural practices
- Cultural practices can help (parents who are experts) or hurt (parents who don't respect the topic, lack of exposure to the subject of a metaphor)
Transfer between school and everyday life
- School is more individualized than most workplaces
- The real-world uses tools more often
- The real-world is more concrete