Transfer and Problem Solving

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Chapter 15

• Transfer and Problem Solving

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Chapter Overview

• Transfer
• Problem Solving
• Facilitating Transfer and Problem Solving in the
  Classroom

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Transfer

• Transfer when something you learn in one
  situation affects how you learn or perform in
  another situation
• Transfer is an important concept for learning
• If we did not transfer learning from one
  situation to another, then we would have to learn
  how to do everything from scratch

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Transfer

• Types of transfer
• Positive vs. Negative transfer
• Positive transfer learning in one situation
  facilitates learning or performance in another
  situation
• Example Knowing how to add and subtract allows
  us to balance our checkbook
• Negative transfer learning in one situations
  hinders our learning or performance in another
  situation
• Example playing tennis well and playing
  racquetball poorly

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Transfer

• Types of transfer continued
• Vertical vs. Lateral transfer
• Vertical transfer An individual learns know
  knowledge or skills by building on basic,
  pre-requisite knowledge
• Example Learning to calculate mean and standard
  deviation before the t-test
• Lateral transfer Knowledge of a topic is not
  essential to learning a new topic, but helps
  somewhat
• Example Knowledge of French is not essential for
  learning Spanish, yet knowing French can
  facilitate learning Spanish

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Transfer

• Types of transfer
• Specific vs. General transfer
• Specific transfer The original learning task and
  the transfer task overlap in content
• Example driving a car versus driving a truck
• General transfer The original task and the
  transfer task are different in content
• Example driving an automatic versus driving a
  standard

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Transfer

• Theories of transfer
• Formal discipline
• Early theory of transfer
• Emphasized the importance of exercising the mind
  so that one can learn more quickly and deal with
  new situations mind as muscle
• Focused on general transfer
• Not well-regarded

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Transfer

• Theories of transfer
• Early Behaviorist Thorndikes Identical
  Elements Transfer will occur only if the
  original and the transfer tasks have identical
  elements
• Learning is facilitated because of the
  information, habits, interests , attitudes, and
  ideals that are produced when studying various
  topics

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Transfer

• Theories of transfer
• Later Behaviorist Similarity of Stimuli and
  Responses
• When stimuli and responses are similar in 2
  situations, transfer will occur
• When stimuli are different and responses are
  similar, some positive transfer will occur
• When stimuli are similar and responses are
  different, negative transfer will occur

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Transfer

• Theories of transfer
• Information processing perspective Transfer
  requires the individual to retrieve the stored
  information and skills at the appropriate time so
  that transfer can take place
• Retrieval cues determine what relevant knowledge,
  if any, will be retrieved
• The more closely associated a transfer event is
  to one that is stored, the more likely it is that
  transfer will take place

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Transfer

• Theories of transfer
• Contextual perspective situated learning
  Learning should take place in the context in
  which it will be used later
• Skills dont necessarily transfer from school to
  life, classroom to classroom, etc.
• We find it hard to compute a 15 tip on a
  restaurant bill
• To facilitate transfer, we should teach for
  transfer

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Transfer

• Factors affecting transfer
• Meaningful learning promotes better transfer than
  rote learning
• The more thoroughly something is learned, the
  more likely it is to be transferred
• The more similar two situations are, the more
  likely it is that transfer will take place
• Principles are more easily transferred than
  knowledge
• Numerous and varied opportunities for practice
  increase the likelihood of transfer
• Time is not a friend to transfer

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Problem Solving

• Problem solving is a complex activity in which we
  engage every day
• Some problems are easy and familiar, others are
  more difficult

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Problem Solving

• Basic concepts in problem solving
• Components of a problem
• Givens information that is provided when the
  problem is presented
• Goal the desired end or goal state
• Operations the actions that are performed to
  reach the goal

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Problem Solving

• Basic concepts in problem solving
• Algorithms and heuristics
• Algorithm Specific, step-by-step procedures for
  solving a problem that will lead to the correct
  answer
• Heuristic general rule of thumb that may lead to
  the correct answer

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Problem Solving

• Basic concepts in problem solving
• Well-defined versus ill-defined problems
• Well-defined problems givens, operations, and
  goals are stated and understood most research
  has focused on this type of problem
• Ill-defined problems givens, operations, and/or
  goals are unknown or unclear most real-life
  problem solving is ill-defined

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Problem Solving

• Theories of problem solving
• Trial-and-error learning
• Problem solving that is characterized by mostly
  unfocused exploration for a possible solution
• Works only if there are a limited number of
  possibilities to be tried
• Young children use this approach

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Problem Solving

• Theories of problem solving
• Response hierarchy An individual tries out a set
  of responses to a stimulus based on the degree of
  habit strength the organism basically runs
  through his/her repertoire of responses to a
  stimulus to see which one works

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Problem Solving

• Theories of problem solving
• Gestalt psychology problem solving requires
  insight, which allows for a restructuring of the
  problem situation not well supported insight
  is not always necessary for problem solving

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Problem Solving

• Theories of problem solving
• Stages Cognitive approach to explaining problem
  solving
• Preparation gather information about the problem
  and its solution
• Incubation think about the problem while
  engaging in other activities
• Inspiration insight
• Verification check to make sure the solution is
  correct

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Problem Solving

• Theories of problem solving
• Information processing theory emphasizes the
  role of working memory capacity, meaningful
  learning, organization of LTM, retrieval, and
  strategies
• More on this in the next section

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Problem Solving

• Cognitive factors in problem solving
• Working memory capacity working memory is
  limited we can overcome this limitation by
  storing information externally (write it down)
  and by using automatic skills

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Problem Solving

• Cognitive factors in problem solving
• Encoding and storage of the problem Sometimes we
  perceive and encode the problem situation
  incorrectly
• St. Ives example in book, p. 363
• A critical factor is knowing what information is
  important/irrelevant and encoding it in the
  correct way (see birds and worms example on page
  364)
• Experts and novices in a particular domain
  classify, encode, and store problems in different
  ways

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Problem Solving

• Cognitive factors in problem solving
• Mental sets in encoding the tendency to approach
  and encode problems in similar ways
• See examples on page 367
• In most cases this facilitates problem solving
  occasionally it hinders our ability to solve a
  problem

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Problem Solving

• Cognitive factors in problem solving
• Functional fixedness
• We think of objects as having only one function
  this causes us to overlook other possible uses,
  which can hinder problem solving
• Functional fixedness and mental set are the
  result of past experience

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Problem Solving

• Cognitive factors in problem solving
• Retrieval from LTM as you are thinking about a
  problem, you must be able to retrieve relevant
  information at the same time so that you can
  solve it
• We start searching logical places problem cues
  can help us search for the correct information
  anagram example
• Anxiety interferes with our ability to retrieve
  information

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Problem Solving

• Cognitive factors in problem solving
• Knowledge base
• Expert problem solvers have a more complete and
  better organized knowledge base for the problems
  in their area of expertise
• They also have more interconnections among that
  information
• Novices lack the knowledge base and are likely to
  engage in ineffective problem solving strategies

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Problem Solving

• Cognitive factors in problem solving
• Metacognition
• Successful problem solvers must
• Believe they can solve the problem
• Know which strategies to use
• Plan a course of action
• Understand that the problem may take time and
  effort
• Monitor progress

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Problem Solving

• Problem solving strategies
• Combining algorithms
• Putting together several algorithms, as is done
  in higher-level mathematics, is often needed
• Difficult to use

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Problem Solving

• Problem solving strategies
• Hill climbing a strategy in which individuals
  engage in activities that will bring them closer
  to the goal state
• It usually leads to the correct solution can be
  difficult if part of the problem solution
  requires a step backwards

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Problem Solving

• Problem solving strategies
• Means-ends analysis
• The problem solver breaks the original problem
  into subgoals and works successively on each
  subgoal until the overall goal is met
• Often used
• A problem is that the use of subgoals can allow
  us to forget the overall goal
• The Tower of Hanoi problem often is used to
  demonstrate this strategy

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Problem solving

• Problem solving strategies
• Working backwards begin at the goal state and
  work your way backward to the beginning
• Example geometry proofs

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Problem Solving

• Problem solving strategies
• Drawing analogies draw an analogy between a
  problem situation and another situation to give
  you some insight into the correct solution
• Gick Holyoak (1980) study on page 375 and in
  handout
• Doesnt always work we often have to be told to
  generate an analogy also, we may draw
  inappropriate parallels

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Problem Solving

• Problem solving strategies
• Representativeness and availability
• Representativeness we jump to a conclusion about
  a solution based on obvious characteristics of
  the problem
• Availability a problem is solved based only on
  information that comes to mind immediately

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Problem Solving

• Meaningful versus meaningless problem solving
• If you learn an algorithm at a rote level, you
  may overlook important information that is
  meaningful to the problem solution

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Facilitating Transfer and Problem Solving

• Students need to learn information meaningfully
  and thoroughly
• Problem solving strategies should be learned at a
  meaningful level
• One must have a mental set for transfer
• Prerequisite skills should be practiced to
  mastery so that they become automatic
• Numerous and varied opportunities for practicing
  transfer and problem solving should be provided

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Facilitating Transfer and Problem Solving

• Students should practice identifying problems on
  their own
• Differences between ideas should be emphasized in
  an effort to minimize negative transfer
• Allow students to learn problem solving skills
  through discovery
• Teach general learning and problem-solving skills

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Facilitating Transfer and Problem Solving

• Students should learn strategies for defining
  ill-defined problems
• Scaffold students early attempts to solve a
  problem
• Cooperative group problem solving can facilitate
  the development of effective problem solving
  strategies
• Classroom evaluation should measure transfer and
  problem solving

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THE END!!!