Teach for transfer. Madeline Hunter

Hello there!
Today I am about to share a bit about a really interesting book "Teach for Transfer" By Madeline Hunter and hope it spikes you with interest and more.

Hunter(1971) Teach for Transfer. Theory into Practice. Tip Publications. El Segundo,CA. 93pp.

Author:

Madeline Hunter (1916-1994)was a Principal, University Elementary School Lecturer and Professor of Educational Administration and Teacher Education. She created the Instructional Theory into Practice teaching model which was widely used by instructors during 1970s and 1980s. She is the author of twelve books and hundreds of articles about education. Her teaching methods helped to transform classrooms into learning environments and the students knowledge grew faster and stronger. For this book, she spent two years extracting from psychological research the principles of transfer which seemed useful and critical to daily teaching.

Comments on the back cover:

This book is the final book of a series the Author wrote to help teachers understand the theories applied to the classroom directly.

Teaching for transfer should be the end goal of all teaching as it starts with the same reasoning, the ability to transfer previous learning to a new situation is the start of creativity, problem solving and critical thinking.Once the teacher has identified an appropriate educational destination for the student,the knowledge he has over the theories will be the answer as to what route to take to be effective, and efficient.

Highlights:

The author believed that the a huge part of the  job of teachers was decision making, and that each educator makes many decisions each day. All of the decisions a teacher makes could be distributed in  what you are going to teach; what you as the teacher will do to improve and effectively provide that learning; and  when the students learn,  how they will let you know that they've learned it.

In teaching for transfer, Hunter specifies that a past situation or learning can and should be linked to the present one as it encourages the knowledge. It means applying what one has learned in a particular situation to another in a different context.

“If we wish to encourage transfer from association of feelings of the past with the present situation, we should make pairing of the two learnings explicit for the learner.”(p.45)

She shows how learning is increased by repetition, learning new things lays down neural pathways so every time a skill is practiced the knowledge is strengthened. Therefore, if something is learned incorrectly the learner has to change what was wrong or wrongly done by relearning the material or skill correctly.

“Adequate learning usually is not accomplished in one exposure so we may need to return to a concept many times and see it in many differing situations before it is well enough understood to transfer to other situations where it is appropriate.”(p.2)

The book is filled with information and then quick quizzes and questions to make sure the reader is understanding the information. It helps to fully analyze and comprehend the theories and match them appropriately to the classroom moments.