Effective Instructional Design for Learning Transfer

Carver found in the delivery of a search narrowing skills lesson that short-term explicit instruction can promote significant learning transfer and retention using assessments that were carefully designed to have goal structures isomorphic to the instruction. She states:

A Piagetian might stress the importance of creating an environment in which preoperational children can engage in active learning continually assimilating new experiences and accommodating schemata until they eventually reorganize their cognitive structures to reach a new level of concrete reasoning (Miller 1993).

A Vygotskian would place more emphasis on the social interactions involved in the learning process by focusing on ways an adult or more skilled peer could provide scaffolding so that the child is able to practice and eventually master tasks at the higher end of her zone of proximal development (Miller 1993).

Citing these scholars she elucidates the metaprinciples that guide instructional design:

Metaprinciple 1: Build on Prior Knowledge.

Metaprinciple 2: Make Thinking Explicit.

Ways to do this include:

  1. directing learners' attention to key features which in turn aids encoding clarifying declarative procedural and especially metacognitive components of the learning task (Siegler 1998)
  2. to have students use a scientist's notebook to reveal preconceptions held before instruction)
  3. teachers posing questions and encouraging comparison and contrast

Metaprinciple 3: Emphasize Links.

Tools to do this involve concept mapping as a means of activating prior knowledge before introducing a topic and during a lesson to encourage students to begin intentionally connecting ideas.

Also students at the Children's School go on trips to the pond near campus during the science unit on ponds reinforcing and extending concepts connecting their school experiences to in-person experiences at the pond.

Metaprinciple 4: Provide Practice Opportunities.

Metaprinciple 5: Expect Individual Variability.

Individual variability at the classroom level is a significant factor in determining learning patterns. Individual variability in home situations and the presence of (even subtle) developmental disabilities should be included in the instructional planning process. Students at the Children's School interact across groups indoors and outdoors where they can interact with their peers - irrespective of age - who have similar interests and abilities.

In aligning instruction with goals teachers at the Children's School focused activities on the areas in which a student or group of students was weak creating explicit instructions and by using scenario-based educational games all while meeting research objectives.