Learning Opportunities

Making Sense of Teaching for Conceptual Understanding and Learning Transfer

Presented By

Julie Stern

Series Sessions

Date Time
Thursday, October 31, 2019 8:30 AM - 3:30 PM

Location

In Person Stonebridge Hotel 12102-100 Street, Grande Prairie, AB

Educators today seem to be faced with a choice: Continue teaching centuries-old ways of organizing the world through traditional disciplines such as mathematics and music, or throw them out in favor of innovation and creativity in order to move into a 21st-century paradigm for teaching and learning.

This is a false choice. Here’s the important truth: Innovation requires the creative transfer of the fundamental and powerful concepts of the traditional disciplines. Innovators don’t invent without a deep understanding of how the world works. Complex problem-solving occurs when people creatively transfer what they learn to complex situations. This workshop demonstrates practical ways teachers can begin to build the schema in students’ brains that facilitates deeper understanding and the ability to unlock complex problems through learning transfer.

Learning Intentions and Success Criteria:

Investigate the role of conceptual understanding in retrieval of information, depth of understanding and transfer of learning.

  • I can compose transferable conceptual relationships and corresponding questions that build both breadth and depth of understanding.
  • I can build understanding of single concepts and teach students how to make connections between concepts.

Understand that transfer is both a means and an end.

  • I can use multiple, fact-rich contexts that illuminate conceptual relationships.
  • I can provide opportunities for students to transfer their understanding and provide solutions to problems.

Examine the importance of quality thinking and metacognition in transfer of learning.

  • I can teach the language of conceptual learning explicitly to students.
  • I can make the goals visible using rubrics, success criteria, examples, think-alongs and more.

Subscribe to our Newsletter