Editing Learning theory (education) (section)

====Transfer of learning====
Transfer of [[learning]] is the idea that what one learns in school somehow carries over to situations different from that particular time and that particular setting.<ref name="Kleibard, H. 2004 pp. 77-105">Kleibard, H. (2004). Scientific curriculum-making and the rise of social efficiency. In ''The Struggle for American Curriculum'' (pp. 77-105).</ref> Transfer was amongst the first phenomena tested in [[educational psychology]]. Edward Lee Thorndike was a pioneer in transfer research. He found that though transfer is extremely important for learning, it is a rarely occurring phenomenon. In fact, he held an experiment where he had the subjects estimate the size of a specific shape and then he would switch the shape. He found that the prior information did not help the subjects; instead it impeded their [[learning]].<ref name="Kleibard, H. 2004 pp. 77-105"/>

One explanation of why transfer does not occur often involves surface structure and deep structure. The surface structure is the way a problem is framed. The deep structure is the steps for the solution. For example, when a math story problem changes contexts from asking how much it costs to reseed a lawn to how much it costs to varnish a table, they have different surface structures, but the steps for getting the answers are the same. However, many people are more influenced by the surface structure. In reality, the surface structure is unimportant. Nonetheless, people are concerned with it because they believe that it provides background knowledge on how to do the problem. Consequently, this interferes with their understanding of the deep structure of the problem. Even if somebody tries to concentrate on the deep structure, transfer still may be unsuccessful because the deep structure is not usually obvious. Therefore, surface structure gets in the way of people's ability to see the deep structure of the problem and transfer the [[knowledge]] they have learned to come up with a solution to a new problem.<ref name="Willingham, D. T. 2009">Willingham, D. T. (2009). Why don't students like school? San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.</ref>

Current [[learning]] pedagogies focus on conveying rote [[knowledge]], independent of the context that gives it meaning{{Citation needed|date=July 2017}}. Because of this, students often struggle to transfer this stand-alone information into other aspects of their [[education]]. Students need much more than abstract concepts and self-contained [[knowledge]]; they need to be exposed to [[learning]] that is practiced in the context of authentic activity and [[culture]].<ref>Brown, John S., Allan Collins, and Paul Duguid. "Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning." Educational Researcher 18.1 (1989): 32-42. Web.</ref> Critics of situated cognition, however, would argue that by discrediting stand-alone information, the transfer of [[knowledge]] across contextual boundaries becomes impossible.<ref>[[Anna Sfard|Sfard, A.]] (1998, March). On two metaphors for [[learning]] and the dangers of choosing just one. Educational Researcher, 4-13.</ref> There must be a balance between situating knowledge while also grasping the deep structure of material, or the understanding of how one arrives to know such information.<ref name="Willingham, D. T. 2009"/>

Some theorists argue that transfer does not even occur at all. They believe that students transform what they have learned into the new context. They say that transfer is too much of a passive notion. They believe students, instead, transform their [[knowledge]] in an active way. Students don't simply carry over knowledge from the classroom, but they construct the knowledge in a way that they can understand it themselves. The learner changes the information they have learned to make it best adapt to the changing contexts that they use the [[knowledge]] in. This transformation process can occur when a learner feels motivated to use the knowledge—however, if the student does not find the transformation necessary, it is less likely that the knowledge will ever transform.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Larsen-Freeman |first=Diane |date=2013 |title=Transfer of Learning Transformed |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9922.2012.00740.x |journal=Language Learning |language=en |volume=63 |issue=s1 |pages=107–129 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-9922.2012.00740.x |issn=1467-9922|hdl=2027.42/96651 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>