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Understanding vs. Memorizing
I loved this short section in Chapter 3 because it reminded me that when assessing learning, I should look for application of knowledge instead of regurgitating facts. At the end of the unit, or year, I want students to have an understanding of the content we covered. This is much more likely if they were able to deeply understand the content in the first place as opposed to briefly memorizing, answering test questions, and promptly forgetting information.

In order to help students *understand* the concepts we are studying, we often ask them to apply knowledge to a specific situation, puzzle, or question. I think the trick to students doing well on these assessments is simply their willingness to be uncomfortable searching for the answers. The students who are willing to sit with their confusion, to try something that doesn't end up working without giving up, who is willing to approach the assignment from different angles, these are the students that are more often successful in developing and showing a true understanding of the material.

Too often, students get frustrated and shut down. "I'm not good at this." or "I've never been good at math." or "I can't do this." All signs of a Fixed Mindset. They can either do something, or they can't.

Instead, we work a lot on a Growth Mindset, where students grow in their understanding and knowledge over time.

The catch is, as the text goes on to acknowledge, is that deep understanding takes time. Lots of time. And often I feel like the breadth of knowledge we are expected to cover does not allow for the time needed for students to develop that rich, deep understanding of content that will be able to be used and transferred to new and unique tasks.

So I guess we have to decide as educators which topics to dive deeply into, and allow for deep understanding, and which ones we only take a surface dive.

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One thing that really stuck with me in the reading for this chapter is the idea that we need to give an adequate amount of time for a student to learn new skills. We have a pacing guide, however this pacing guide is limiting due to a one size fits all approach to learning. Different students operate at their own pace, so why do we prescribe a pace, knowing that not all students can meet such expectation. As we set the expectation we say, all are capable, well are they? If we set the expectation the same for all knowing that not all operate the same, are we truly providing equal access to educate all students? Students need time to learn, and some need a non-linear approach to time.

I love the idea of "abstract representation", which I know as "alternative assessment" or "project-based learning". Taking a lesson and transcending it into various forms for the learner is the best approach, in my opinion. It helps to teach the lesson to those who learn in a non-linear fashion for which traditional education relies upon. It is a favorite of mine to construct and conduct a lesson that is non-linear.

I can say that the pace of a class and my ability to learn is an ongoing challenge in my life. As a grad student shuffling through the pandemic and mandatory shelter in place, I have to adapt to my settings. This adaptation has not come easy and at times I have found myself lacking in motivation. I feel depleted at times in trying to keep up with the general pace of life, along with the stress of the pandemic and social unrest. To persist through these challenges I try to do what I would want my students to do, speak up. I would want my students to tell me if they are having a challenging time and what I can do to help. I truly do this with my students, and it works great. If a student needs more time, needs to sit somewhere else, needs an alternative form of assessment, I do my best to accommodate. I feel if I don't try to accommodate, I am not doing my job. Therefore the biggest help has been from professors who understand that the current circumstances require unpredictable accommodations, that may have never been explored before.

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As I read this chapter my mind raced all over the place, as I was thinking about how my kindergarten students learn, how I learn, and how my husband (a cellist in the Eugene Symphony and a chess expert) learns.  In How People Learn, the authors explain transfer: ”It is especially important to understand the kinds of learning experiences that lead to transfer, defined as the ability to extend what has been learned in one context to new contexts (e.g., Byrnes, 1996:74)”(p. 51). As the authors explained, Ericsson worked with a college student to increase his capacity to remember digit strings. This reminded me of how I often will remember someone’s address or phone number—I try to relate the numbers to meaningful dates in my life (e.g. the year my grandparents were married, birthdays of my family members, the year I started kindergarten, etc.). It really helps the numbers stay with me. Our text explains what was actually going on with Ericsson’s student: “what happened was that he learned to use his specific background knowledge to ‘chunk’ information into meaningful groups” (p. 52). I think this is why I’m able to remember so many strings of numbers because they are meaningful to me. A funny side note: many years ago my grandfather realized that their home phone number was their actual wedding date—I love that so much, so of course I’ve never forgotten: 9/28/1941.

Our text goes on to explain that meaningful memorization can only go so far for learning, as students need practice: “It is important to be realistic about the amount of time it takes to learn complex subject matter. It has been estimated that world-class chess masters require from 50,000 to 100,000 hours of practice to reach that level of expertise; they rely on a knowledge base containing some 50,000 familiar chess patterns to guide their selection of moves (Chase and Simon, 1973; Simon and Chase, 1973)” (p. 56). My husband was a chess champion and was able to travel to New York for a tournament when he was in high school, and also played chess when he was in college at the University of Oregon. However, he ultimately chose his cello and music performance as his main passion—and both of these passions require a great deal of practice in order to become professional players. I think he is also incredibly talented, but like the authors point out, many hours of practice is needed in order to reach the level of expertise. Our text expands further: ”’expertise occurs only with major investments of time, and the amount of time it takes to learn material is roughly proportional to the amount of material being learned (Singley and Anderson, 1989); see Box 3.5. Although many people believe that “talent” plays a role in who becomes an expert in a particular area, even seemingly talented individuals require a great deal of practice in order to develop their expertise (Ericsson et al., 1993)’” (p. 58).

As I think about how my kinders learn, I’m reminded about how much they love to learn when they are motivated. I often plan writing and illustrating activities where they can share their work using the document camera (projecting onto the screen). I’m always amazed at how much they love to see and share their work when it is projected. I’ve had all kindergarten levels of writers and illustrators share their work, and everyone gets the same praise and encouragement when we do it. I also think it helps to build trust in our classroom community. Our text explains: “Social opportunities also affect motivation. Feeling that one is contributing something to others appears to be especially motivating (Schwartz et al., 1999). For example, young learners are highly motivated to write stories and draw pictures that they can share with others” (p. 61).

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Learning transfer is defined as “the ability to extend what has been learned in one context to new contexts” (Bransford, 51). As our text illuminates, there are many factors that go into successful transfer including having enough time for practice, deliberate practice of skills, motivation to succeed, and metacognition. Educators can facilitate transfer by providing students with feedback and problem-solving strategies. Successful transfer is necessary for success within the school environment and more importantly, in the ‘real world.’ We need our students to transfer the skills they learn in class to their lives outside of school. As John Dewey said, “School should be less about preparation for life and more like life itself” (Bransford, 77).

The most difficult and impactful learning experience I have had in the last decade, was teaching overseas. As I reflect on the idea of transfer, I can see the areas in which I relied on previous knowledge to guide me during moments of feeling completely at sea. However, that knowledge did not always serve me. At certain points, it was crucial that I ‘un-learn’ what I thought I knew and start over. One area that took a lot of dedicated practice and time was in communicating across cultural divides. I had assumptions about my students based on previous experience as a coach and trainer. I had certain skill sets to deal with classroom problems and management, they just didn’t happen to translate well to my foreign classroom. For example, in a culture where saving face is of paramount importance, how you solicit answers from students needs to be approached very thoughtfully. Having made mistakes in class, I received immediate feedback from the students; they were unhappy. This led me to seek out feedback from my co-teachers and ask what I had done wrong. This feedback was critical to my learning process. With new information and a really strong motivation to succeed, I implemented changes that better fit the milieu in which I was working. In order to get more students answering and talking, I created situations that allowed for some anonymity and privacy. These strategies included one-on-one speaking assessments and anonymous writing submissions. Once I did this, students really opened up. Furthermore, once we had passed some time together, the students knew that they could trust me not to cause them to lose face, which dissipated a lot of their fears.

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Sailing. The sound of the wind and water rushing by without any engine. The lifestyle of leisure and travel. And if you live this life, a ton of work and anxiety between the moments of beauty. This was my life for my early teen years. Living on a sailboat meant a lot of things, but one consequence of the three years on and around boats was a Captain’s license at age 15. Sure I couldn’t read social cues but I understood the feel of wind and tautness of jib, the mystery of light refracting through water. I had seen and smelled and tasted charcoal making in the hills of Haiti’s North shore. Been through hurricanes, reefs, ocean passages, and tight harbors and loneliness and night watch hours. Then I moved to Western Massachusetts and went to high school. The skills did not transfer, it was a far transfer for everything from footwear (boots after sandals?) and friends (a sole sibling to classmates who were grumpy when I chirped, “Good morning”). However, I was not ever afraid of hard work and long hours, even late at night.

My knowledge was overly contextualized and without anyone drawing abstract representations from the experiences I had just been through, I was miserably lost and alone. In spite of that it appeared that academically I had an advantage. My family are educators and all along the way some intellectually stimulating dynamic was included. I had definitely reached an adequate level of mastery of the original subject. (How People Learn, p 53) We were able to focus more on understanding than memorizing (although for a break in boredom I occasionally re-remembered forgotten songs) and we had had plenty of time (24/7 adds up, 365x24=8760 hours the first year). Even our entertainment was sailing after that because we got a sailing dingy and played sail tag when there were other kids around. So at least 10,000 hours of instruction and deliberate practice with constant feedback both from my father, the captain, and the responsiveness of the boats. Progress was not only signaled by the lack of reprimand but also by the fact that I had navigated a difficult moment or situation. The maneuvers around a crowded harbor filled with million dollar yachts had a powerful intrinsic motivation to improve my skills, work as a team, and be alert for the signals in wind changes, etc. Knowing this was a likely scene each new harbor gave an unspoken yet high degree of knowing the “when, where, and how to use knowledge” that I was learning (HPL, pp 55-59).

Transferring this to college preparatory high school must have happened to some degree. I was self motivated and overcame a handicap of many credits to graduate with my class. I enjoyed the social opportunities while not needing to follow the pack in anything, being a distinct outsider (along with the son of the Shah of Iran). And I had plenty of contrasting clues when I reflected on my life, journaling and continuing to write poetry. (HPL, p60) There were creative outlets that transferred as well, including choir and theater and writing. Perhaps having such a strong basis in the original subject made it transferrable to anything, near or far. I do know that I had the motivation to get to college before I moved inland. I was the catalyst for our family to stop the around the world plan and stay on St. Croix in the USVI for my and then my brother’s second half of eighth grade year (to promote officially since we had done home and correspondence schooling). I did transfer all the metacognitive skills, the writing and reading skills, the observation and following directions and applying effort and critical thinking, and even map reading came in handy in history classes. Biology built on an intimate knowledge of marine life after years of spear fishing, new vegetation exploration and seashell studies. Math was unconsciously informed by intuitive angles against the wind and directions on a compass and proofs by arguing philosophy with my father. Geography, language, and literature all were grounded in some experience rather than words on a page. We had seen the citadel built by Napoleon described in the history book. I knew the vastness of the ocean crossed before Plymouth Rock. The challenge was never too little, and I was “learning oriented.” There was definitely a social component that feed my motivation as I was in a great group of students, one of those golden years groups of artists, athletes and scientists and now educators. (HPL, p61)

I know that while all this appears to just be chronologically connected transfer, my mind was cognitively aware of how one integrates one set of knowledge into use in another. In my first year, 10th grade, in Geometry II we were studying proofs midway through the year. Our teacher had us outline the proof in detail, painstakingly absorbing the logic involved. Simultaneously I was struggling to organize a research paper in English. I had the distinct metacognitive insight that the proof was related to the outline of the essay. Ever since then, essay writing makes sense. In college I played with variations on how to structure essays based on the content I was conveying (a kind of hidden joke I never admitted to). I think this illustrates the metacognitive or abstraction that is involved in transfer and maybe shows that we engage with transfer in deepening levels throughout our lives.

Once we have a physical mastery (we learned how to walk or sail) then we communicate in more and more abstract ways (language being one, writing academically another). I have read elsewhere that if you master a subject to a certain level, beyond adequate, even if you don’t engage with that material and learn some new subject matter you constantly deepen that area of knowledge. I have observed that while I stopped sailing for twenty years it only took a moment to pick up the sheets and sail beautifully when offered an unexpected afternoon on the lake. Once I could sail at the level of captain, I could metaphorically fly through any environment.

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Understanding vs Memorizing - Student Edition

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Understanding vs Memorizing - Student Edition

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Reading Chapter 3 made me realize that for most of my educational career, I have tried to memorize instead of understand information taught in my classes in order to pass an exam. One example in the text explains that world class chess masters need 50,000 - 100, 000 hours of practice before reaching that level of expertise (56). So what does that mean for students? Especially when one topic is discussed for a only a brief period of time? The text says that by "providing students with time to learn also includes providing enough time for them to process information" (58).

As a future educator myself, I wonder how much of this research is supported because teachers are constantly running out of time. Students do not often have the time to process information because daily school schedules are often tight. For example, a group of third graders were able to memorize a pictorial and verbal information after 15 seconds of exposure. When only given 8 seconds, they couldn't mentally integrate the information (58). This example represents the importance of time and it's impact on learning, which isn't always available during a typical school day.

So what does this mean for me as a student? How can I take time to process my understanding of a topic instead of memorizing it for a grade? Where will I get my motivation to take this extra time? I believe that I am more of a  "performance oriented" person than a "learning oriented" person which affects how much effort I put into understanding content rather than learning content. How do I become more motivated? "Learners of all ages are more motivated when they can see the usefulness of what they are learning..." (61). As both a student and a teacher, this is an important takeaway. The more often students are able to understand the "why" to what they are learning the more engaged they will be.

I still have a lot of learning to do in order to find more interesting ways to approach teaching and learning that will allot more self-motivation and understanding of material.

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Transfer and Metacognition; Previous Experiences

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Transfer and Metacognition; Previous Experiences

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"Transfer can be improved by helping students become more aware of themselves as learners who actively monitor their learning strategies and resources and assess their readiness for particular tests and performances" (67).

This made me think about my volleyball players and our practices. I give a LOT of feedback to my girls, and now that we're in small groups they get much more of it. One of my setters and one of my middle hitters have been showing me their ability to monitor their own playing - one of my setters told me, "My feet were pointed this way when I set this ball but I needed to have them pointed here," or "I needed to push the ball to the outside hitter more". As an athlete, I was and still am the same way - I'm always reflecting on how I performed and using what I already know to "better the ball" and improve my skills, and have been seeing especially lately how my athletes are reflecting and doing the same thing.

Further, Ch. 3 discusses learning as transfer from previous experiences. I would say that I have experienced the second implication for educational practice the most - "students may misinterpret new information because of previous knowledge they use to construct new understandings" (68). I began to think about my incoming freshmen and the background knowledge of the sport that they bring to their first high school season. I have to reteach many skills and the game-like aspect each season - a huge focus in high school ball is on attacking, defense, and making the three contacts on our side before sending the ball back over. My incoming 9th graders have been specifically taught to not do an approach or hit the ball (which we spend a LOT of time working on), serve overhand, or do the three contacts, which turns into a game of tennis; back in middle school. They've formed habits based on what prior coaches have told them and that transfers over to their first high school season.

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I began to learn effective communication, specifically with young children, when I was a teenager and I began babysitting.  My mom gave me immediate and corrective feedback on how to speak to children and how to help two young children solve a problem with each other. I began to think about how I was phrasing choices and directions in a new way, and I thought about WHY that was important. Because I loved being around children, I was motivated to learn more about how to communicate positively and effectively. Bransford says "Learners of all ages are more motivated when they can see the usefulness of what they are learning and when they can use that information to do something that has an impact on others" (P.61). My understanding of how to talk to children expanded with the more jobs that I had. I learned the most about this while student teaching and continued to receive feedback.
After years of expanding on my background knowledge from my first experience of babysitting, I learned that children responded well to a calm tone, choices, praise for their efforts, having one-on-one time invested in them, and more. When I was in college, I started tutoring students and I realized that the strategies I was using with first graders could also be used to support 18-21 year olds that felt overwhelmed by their studies. This was a new scenario and environment, so I needed to adjust my approach. I was not going to talk to my peers like they were seven years old, but I could speak to them calmly and give them choices on assignments. Part of how we know when knowledge has been transferred is when it has been applied in a new situation. In chapter 3, Bransford states "Transfer from school to everyday environments in the ultimate purpose of school-based learning." (P. 78). Eventually, I realized that these strategies worked for conversations in my personal life. This also required adjustments and my previous knowledge helped my new learning about communicating in my relationships. Investing one-on-one time, praising, and staying calm during difficult conversations proved to be worthwhile.

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Reflections on Learning Instruments and Other Classroom Applications

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Reflections on Learning Instruments and Other Classroom Applications

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Reading chapter 3 had me reflecting on my adventures beginning in 2nd grade with learning to play instruments.  I was a serial instrument switcher (to my parents' great dismay) and used my capacity for transfering my musical skills between instruments every couple of years.
My first instrument was the recorder, introduced to me in 2nd grade music class.  I struggled with fingerings, learned songs that only contained three notes, and hated the sounds I played!
In 3rd grade I began taking private lessons for playing the piano and in this process learned basic music theory and to sight read sheet music - which came in handy for 5th grade band where I picked up the clarinet.
The clarinet didn't last however when I swapped it for the oboe in 6th grade and exchanged those piano lessons for oboe lessons instead.  Middle school being the height of my musical career, I worked on learning more complex rhythms, fingers, breath control, and embouchure (ways to appropriately position the lips).  By high school, both vertical and near transfer (p. 53) of musical skills from earlier years meant I was playing in my school's award-winning music program with a seat in the second highest band as a freshman.  All of my skills were repeatedly applied with each new piece we learned: "Transfer is affected by the degree to which people learn with understanding rather than merely memorize sets of facts or follow a fixed set of procedures" (p. 55).  Since then I have built an Irish flute out of PVC and was able to play it in minutes because the fingerings were nearly identical to the oboe - as were the fingerings for both recorder and ocarina which I picked up playing in a casual capacity back in high school.

It wasn't all a smooth transition though, some negative transfer took place as well: "Transfer could also be negative in the sense that experience with one set of events could hurt performance on related tasks" (p.53)  Remember those piano lessons from 3rd-6th grade? The craigslist piano I did the majority of my practice on at home was cracked in the back and could not be tuned.  To this day I sing flat and cannot tune my instruments without the aid of an electric tuner because I trained my ears to recognize notes on a flat piano.

In terms of teaching science, I do agree that many of these same concepts of knowledge transfer apply.  For example, many science concepts build upon one another - I teach 6th graders about cells in general before they learn how bodies are constructed by cells, then tissues, then organs.  Additionally, the boundaries of science content are blurred because no concept exists in isolation.  My students need to understand how changes in a material's temperature affect the material's density in order to fully understand the concept of convection currents.  Convection is an important concept for learning about the water cycle, lake-turnover, weather, climate, and plate tectonics.  I appreciate that science does have so much overlap as it allows students to transfer their understanding of many engaging underlying concepts to practice their understanding of a larger theme - in this example involving behavior of particles at a molecular level: "[students] may need to take time to explore underlying concepts and to generate connections to other information they possess." (p. 58)

Bransford's writing is relevant to our position as teachers because each year we "hope that students will transfer learning from one problem to another within a course, from one year in school to another, between school and home, and from school to workplace" (p. 51) and yet we know "It can be difficult for [students] to learn with understanding at the start; they may need to take time to explore underlying concepts" (p. 58).  Too often students do not get the time and support needed to meet a grade level expectations.  These students are then assumed to have transferred past knowledge/skills they have not yet had the practice to learn. To provide adequate practice and prevent students from falling behind, we can implement tactics like spiral learning, intentional review, and call-backs before teaching new skills or concept.  We can also put in place an RTI framework with structured  academic interventions outside of core instruction for students performing below grade level  to strengthen and teach material/skills their peers may already know. This is supported by Bransford's findings: "Without specific guidance from teachers, students may fail to connect everyday knowledge to subjects taught in school." (p. 70).

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I am currently taking another class through PSU for my Curriculum and Instruction program called Guidance for Classroom Teaching. This week's work and learning for that class has been largely focused around Restorative Justice and trauma responsive teaching practices and the connections between them. When I entered the teaching profession four years ago, my school was only just starting to explore Restorative Justice, and now we have a much deeper, more developed understanding and implementation of it. While I did the readings for this week on Restorative Justice and trauma responsive teaching, I know my brain was engaging in transfer. According to Bransford, "Transfer is affected by the context of original learning" (62). When I originally began learning about Restorative Justice, I was a brand new teacher, only one or two months into my career, which I'm sure has affected the new learning I've done around RJ and trauma responsive practices. In addition, the context in which I did my original learning was directed towards a demographic of students who  are predominately white and have high socioeconomic status.When I completed this week's reading on Restorative Justice and trauma responsive schools, that context must have affected the lens through which I engaged in new learning. My lens was shifted though, when I read/listened to other teachers in the class who work with more diverse groups.

I also found Bransford's thoughts about meaningful learning and transfer occurs when students monitor their learning. As educators it is crucial for us to implement opportunities into our lessons that allow students to be metacognitive and to use feedback meaningfully. A theme I've noticed across the readings we've completed is the importance of understanding the communities and cultures of our students in order to help them connect prior knowledge to new learning and understanding.

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Active Versus Passive Approaches to Transfer

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Active Versus Passive Approaches to Transfer

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"It is important to view transfer as a dynamic process that requires learners to actively choose and evaluate strategies, consider resources, and receive feedback. This active view of transfer is different from more static views, which assume that transfer is adequately reflected by learners’ abilities to solve a set of transfer problems right after they have engaged in an
initial learning task" (p. 66).

Reading this chapter reminded me of several things. One, it brought back the information I gained about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. If a child is not fed, safe, and taken care of at their most basic levels, they cannot be expected to flourish at the higher levels. That is my first initial thought when going into a school day. My job is to meet my kids where they are, walking in the room, bringing all their past experience and traumas. If I can't make them feel safe and secure, no amount of instruction can overcome that.

Another thing I connected to in the reading was the idea of feedback. As an adult, there are plenty of times in a job setting where I complete a task, and want to know how I did. What could I improve upon, what did I do well, what needs to change, etc. Only then, when feedback is given and reflected upon, will I be able to improve and continue to grow from any experience. That is something so important for kids as well. Often times, I grade a paper, file it away, and never give my students a chance to reflect on how they did on an assignment. Even if it is not something that needs intervention or reteaching, students could really benefit from looking back on their work.

In addition, providing adequate feedback for kids is important. Not merely writing "Good Job" on the top or "Please Redo." As time consuming as productive feedback could be, the goal is for students to gain solid learning experience from practice, and specific feedback can greatly impact their success.

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During this chapter, I found myself thinking a lot about how each of my students who are very different from each other interact with transfer, especially in context to their homelife, so when I got to the section about cultural impact on transfer I was delighted to read more. At my school, the homeroom teachers try very hard to employ different modes of teaching and learning, and try to provide students with the tools they need to become reflective learners. I have learned to be more flexible in my instruction, in the ways that I access students, and in how students show their work as we have worked within the Responsive Classroom structure during the past three years at my school. However, this work often still comes from the framework of white culture, because most of the teachers at my school are white women, regardless of attempts to try to go beyond that culture. This section talked about how simple things like topic-associative language vs. the “orderly” topic-centered language can show implicit bias in teachers:

“African American children who come to school speaking in a topic-associa- tive style may be seen by many teachers as having less potential for learning. Teachers can be helped to view different cultural backgrounds as strengths to be built on, rather than as signs of “deficits.” (p. 73)

The staff at my school works very hard to include students’ home culture in their classrooms and activities, but this chapter shows that it is SO important to include cultural differences in the learning itself! This chapter has challenged my thinking that learning is so often teacher-based...we control the learning process, environment, experiences, and that control leads to the students’ ability to take in knowledge and be able to transfer that knowledge. It is clear though, that the student needs to be the center of how learning is organized and assessed, because each student has so many factors going into their ability to take learning and transfer that learning in a way that benefits them for the rest of their lives.

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I’ve gotten increasingly more skilled at skiing over the past few years. While I’m not yet at the expert level, I can say with confidence that I’m an accomplished novice. I water-skied as a child. Growing up in Oklahoma, we didn’t have mountains, but we had plenty of lakes. The two sports are considerably different, but there are similarities that I transferred from one to the other. For instance, the way in which you turn and move around on the snow or water is comparable. Banford (2000) says, “All new learning involves transfer based on previous learning, and this fact has important implications for the design of instruction that helps students learn” (p. 53). My previous experience with skis was applicable to my learning to ski on snow.

In addition, each day spent snow skiing contributed my abilities on snow. For the past five years, my family spent almost every weekend at Hoodoo or Mt. Bachelor in the winter and into the spring, although this spring ended too early due to Covid. Banford states, “Although many people believe that ‘talent’ plays a role in who becomes an expert in a particular area, even seemingly talented individuals require a great deal of practice in order to develop their expertise” (p. 58).  I went from french frying and pizzaing, beginner skiing moves for going and stopping, to carving and gliding. Much of what I’ve gained in talent was learned by watching expert skiers. I begin with mimicry and find my own version of what they’re doing.

Also, my son and husband are pretty accomplished snowboarders. I struggled to keep up with them at first, and this frustrated me. Instead of giving up, I became determined to improve. Banford explains, “Learners of all ages are more motivated when they can see the usefulness of what they are learning and when they can use that information to do something that has an impact on others” (p. 61). My ability to make it down the mountain and stay close by my family was motivation. We always get the most enjoyment out of the day when we’re together, and I was determined to make that happen.

I still have a lot to learn to become an expert. Sometimes, I watch small children fly down the mountain with an ease that I fear I’ll never have, but I’m motivated to improve in my abilities. Each time I learn something new in skiing, I’m filled with a feeling of accomplishment and joy.

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I have found that with my class sizes and student load, I do not yet have the skills to provide meaningful feedback to all of my students in a timely manner. Amongst my attempts to offer valuable feedback to each student, I have tried narrative feedback, student conferences, clear rubrics, and even feedback codes. I fear that  none of these modes of feedback provided enough information to develop every student's learning. As is explained in this chapter, “students need feedback about the degree to which they know when, where, and how to use the knowledge they are learning“ (59). I understand this concept and yet I find to be one of the most challenging aspects of teaching.

My most valuable learning experience took place when my mentors took the time needed to provide thoughtful, constructive, and timely feedback. Once example of this took place when I was supervising staff in a residential therapeutic program. When I began as a supervisor, I did not yet have the skills to manage all of the expectations and safety concerns of the position while providing the support and oversight to my staff and students. My mentor and boss at this time, took time every day to reflect back to me how I was doing and provide thoughtful feedback. In this, I was able to develop in my work and excel in my practice.

As important as outside feedback and reflection, is metacognition. At the same time my mentor provided feedback to me, they asked me to reflect on where I felt that I was succeeding, where I say growth areas, and where I was totally lost. In this self-provided feedback I had my biggest learning moments.

This practice is equally as important with our kiddos. I don’t yet have the skill set to incorporate this into all of our learning in my classroom. For now, I have students identify where they met learning targets ( highlight evidence and reasoning in their papers), where they see growth areas (identifying what was difficult or where they may have struggled with the learning target), and what questions they have or help they still need.

All of the practices outlined in this chapter harmonize with my own understanding of students' learning. With that, I am still seeking authentic ways to bring feedback and metacognition into my classroom.

For those with large class sizes and student loads, how do you provide meaningful feedback to your students? How do you foster a culture of self reflection and metacognition?

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The importance of transfer in the lives of our students is an especially important one. So often, as teachers, we can find ourselves in the place of thinking about the learning that we hope takes place in our classrooms as an island to itself. We hope to see students grow and learn over the course of our class, but it can be easy to lose sight of the fact that the ultimate goal of what happens in our classrooms is that they would take what they learn and apply it to their life outside of school. “In this sense, then, the ultimate goal of schooling is to help students transfer what they have learned in school to everyday settings of home, community, and workplace” (p.73). When John Dewey’s name was brought up in this text, I wasn’t surprised. The reading reminded me of his philosophy, especially for younger students, to learn through normal household tasks. For example, learning arithmetic from baking. It is interesting to me that the reading went on to state that while these real world contexts can be important, more varied experiences and examples with the content promotes more of this transfer.

One learning experience that I think really applies to transfer is how I was taught the scientific method. I remember this being introduced to it formally in middle school science, and I remember thinking how cool it was that we would be conducting experiments. At the same time, I remember thinking the various steps like creating a hypothesis or identifying a control were just busy work and unnecessary steps that my teacher was “making us do.” I recall having an attitude of “isn’t the whole point the experiment part?”

After nearly every science class that followed using the same scientific method in different scenarios, I felt that it was easier to understand the reasons behind the steps of the method, why they were there, and how they were helpful in determining and analyzing results of the experiment. When I went to college to study art, I got my lab science out of the way my freshman year, I thought my scientific method days were behind me. But upon reflection, I can see how that knowledge transferred to my art making processes. When I was doing a lot of screen printing, I would test times of exposure for the photo emulsion to see what would produce the clearest image. In Ceramics, I test glazes and combinations of glazes in the kiln in a methodical way. While I don’t sit down and write a lab report on it, I informally transferred this knowledge in understanding the importance of things like controlled variables or hypothesizing informally as I complete the process.

I think that what aided in the success of this transfer of knowledge is the way that the process was introduced in a variety of settings over a long period of time (middle school science, chemistry, biology, physics, psychology) and in the context of hands-on activities. This chapter makes me reflect on what life skills I would like my students to transfer from my class and into the many facets of their lives.

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"An analysis of everyday environments provides opportunities to rethink school practices in order to bring them into alignment with the requirements of everyday environments." (How People Learn, 78)

I made connections to transfer in this chapter because a lot of the hands on and experiential learning that I did at home and in work contexts, contributed a lot to my instincts as an educator. There was more direct transfer between those social contexts than there was between my learning and writing in classes and what I applied in the classroom. For instance, I learned in high school to successfully teach small groups new swimming techniques, and this directly transferred to how I taught students new art techniques. Many of the notable skills that transferred were the language that I learned to use, the non-judgmental environment I created, and the positivity and encouragement that I brought to the experience when students were struggling.

When it came to actually reading about education philosophy and pedagogy, especially when I first became a teacher, I had a lot of trouble holding on to and applying any specific information in the context of the classroom. I was all about the hands on experience.  I couldn’t have told you that I was teaching a project based learning model, or why. But, I was doing it. That is an example to me of how real life experiences transferred more easily to my social context as a teacher, than the intellectual readings and direct instruction that I received in college courses.

This makes me consider how I can encourage students to experience that transfer from the art room to their lives. I am considering how I can integrate more choice and problem solving, so that their experience in the art room more closely resembles an art making experience in their life context.