Failing To Transfer

Saturday Masterclass, 10th of May 2025.

Let's reimagine learning that truly transfers.

Sandeep led a discussion on the challenges of productive failure in teaching, emphasising the importance of understanding why this failure occurs and how to address it. He also discussed the concept of situated cognition, where learning is linked to the environment and experiences, and the importance of context in learning and transfer. The conversation ended with Sandeep expressing gratitude for the support and resilience of teachers and encouraging everyone to participate in the Masterclass certification program.

Key Takeaways

1. We fail to remember because of low retrieval strength. However, forgetting can be good because retrieval practice effectively increases storage and retrieval strengths.

2. We fail to understand because, as novices, we do not have the prior knowledge to see and connect with new knowledge. Therefore, when learning something new, we should prepare to see and not go straight into teaching or telling.

3. We fail to transfer because learning is situated in the context in which we learn, which means that if the context of learning and the context of use or transfer differ, transfer becomes hard.