Transfer of Learning: Cognition, Instruction, and Reasoning

Transfer of learning refers to how previous learning influences current and future learning, and how past or current learning is applied or adapted to similar or novel situations. It is the neurocognitive mechanism underlying many phenomena and it acts as the basis of mental abstraction, analogical relations, classification, generalization, generic thinking, induction, invariance, isomorphic relations, logical inference, metaphor, and constructing mental models. The research on teaching for transfer clearly shows that for transfer to occur, the original learning must be repeatedly reinforced with multiple examples or similar concepts in multiple contexts, and on different levels and orders of magnitude. The…