Transfer

Sorry for the belated post, though I'm glad I can comment on the trends Karen noticed. I'm shocked that so many people felt transfer was something that didn't have to do with libraries! I guess I'm one of those people that, in a time when libraries seem to be scrambling to figure out exactly what they bring to the table these days, I tend to say "libraries can do that!!" to just about anything. Maybe TOO much. Assuming schools aren't going to massively change the way they do things to promote transfer in the super short-term, libraries are a great place to offer affordances to knowledge transfer, even if they aren't doing the initial teaching. And libraries CAN and SHOULD know what schools are teaching, even if they're not literally in the same building, which is the case with most public libraries. Aren't we places of "lifelong learning"? And shouldn't knowing about how learning works be key to all of us? Sheesh.

One dichotomy used in the chapter was on "learning" versus "performance" focused learners, and I thought this was a good way of thinking about two different kinds of student. As much as I am consciously a "learning" based learner, I think subconsciously I am performance based, because I do end up being stressed when I make mistakes during learning processes. I think it all links back to formative versus summative assessment too...growing up in a summative dominated educational system, we all come to see education as a sort of vetting process, and look at what we learn in terms of whether we can perform to some standard.

I also think the section on motivation and learning provides a huge opportunity for libraries to offer and facilitate transfer. One thing the chapter pointed out was that students are more likely to be motivated when they see their knowledge can be used to do something immidiately useful, and another was that students are motivated when they are learning something to help others, or do something that is socially significant. Libraries (should) do a great job of planning and executing programs that do these things, creating activities where people put what they've learned into some tangible product or project, and bringing people together to discuss and work on issues facing the community. As long as they are in the know about what's being taught, and how it can be used or what the community could stand to gain from it, they can put themselves in a position to offer motivating learning environments.