Enhancing Retention and Transfer
M any people feel that
when the
However,
test
as a last
is
over so is the course.
step it is important to
figures
out ways to increase the
chances that the skills you
have taught will be used
properly by learners when they
use them outside of the
learning context. Learners
may be able to recall new
knowledge and skills in the
classroom, but what about
when they get into the real
world?
Because learning is
generally situation-specific the
best way to aid in retention
and transfer is to ,provide a
meaningful context in which to
present your instruction. If the
skills to be learned represent
skills used in the real world,
try to establish a “classroom”
learning environment that
approximates this real world
context as close as possible.
Then the jump to the real world
will be less of a change for
learners. For example, consider
the following goal:
Descriptive paragraphs is often
part of communicating with other
people via letters, an excellent
overall context for this outcome
would be establishing email
correspondences between
students and people they care
about. This closely matches what
they would be doing in the real
world, and as such will make it
easier for them to transfer the
skills they learn to that real world.
It is also important to
make sure that the most
effective conditions for
learning the Specific type of
performance are part of the
learning
Environment Beyond
that, another
way to enhance
good
retention is through a
review of the material at
the end of
instruction. Reviews new
information, and also help
to strengthen the
network of
relationships in the brain. For
longer units it is
often good to have
reviews spaced
Assisting learners with
the transfer of new skills is
aided greatly by
presenting students with
new varieties of tasks that
are related to what they
have already learned.
These tasks should equire
the application of what has
been learned in situations
that differ substantially from
those used for the learning
itself. For example, if you
are teaching a set a set of
rules for making verbs agree
with a pronoun subject, you
may have assessed learners