Invisible Transfer: An Unexpected Finding in the Pursuit of Transfer By Danica L. Schieber

For my most recent summary, I read Invisible Transfer: An Unexpected Finding in the Pursuit of Transfer By Danica L. Schieber. I found the ideas super interesting and it helped me think about how I can be more strategic in my teaching. Before I expand on my thoughts I want to summarize the article briefly to make this a bit easier to follow. 

The goal of this study was to find out more about what knowledge students transfer from class to class and to a real world business setting. Studies have shown that students do not always transfer what they have learned from one class to the next. It is also difficult to identify specifically what knowledge is being transferred. Students sometimes have trouble adapting what they have learned to new situations they are in. This study argues that the transfer of learning in business classes is largely invisible to students and their instructors yet students do take the knowledge they have learned and unconsciously build on it. The study takes two participants Sam and Annie and looks at what they learned in a business writing class and then analyzes their writing terminology, audience awareness, and more. The study found that these students unconsciously started using terminology they learned in this class along with rhetorical strategies. For example, showed an awareness of her audience and how to appeal to them in future projects along with marketing terms. The article concludes it is important to think strategically about what we are teaching students and to try to connect it to their future writing if possible. It also discusses that both students and teachers should be made more aware of this transfer of knowledge instructors should think more deeply about it and it should be studied further. 

This idea of having difficulty quantifying knowledge transfer was such an interesting one for me. I feel like as instructors it is difficult to grasp how much of what we teach that our students take with them once they complete our course.  Schieber says, “Transfer of learning is an important goal for instructors of any subject. We all hope that our students will be able to take what they learned in our class with them to their next situation (class or work). It is often difficult to pin down an action or a spoken or written phrase and be able to claim that it is an example of transfer,”(464).

I think this can be especially hard when teaching less quantifiable subjects like writing and other humanities. In subjects like math, it can be easier to follow student retention of information when they move to higher-level classes. With writing classes, the transfer might be more subtle. Schieber supports this idea saying, “This transfer can be difficult for students to achieve, in large part because students have trouble seeing writing tasks as similar when they are in dissimilar contexts.” (465).  I found this point to be especially important because students might not realize they are taking these writing principles and applying them to new situations. The change of context often makes them unaware that they are using this knowledge at all. Instructors also may not see this transfer and therefore think it isn’t happening.

Schiebner says, “I use the term “invisible transfer” to remind instructors and researchers that their students may be learning important and flexible rhetorical strategies in other courses for writing in their future careers. They will only remain invisible to us if we do not attend to, research, and encourage our students to use them. This experience has taught me that I need to be more aware of the strategies that my students are bringing into the advanced writing classroom because they can be useful strategies for my students to continue to use. ” (482). I found this to be such an important point. We can be more mindful of our strategies and the ways that students can apply them in new ways. 

One thing I have done in the past that I think has helped with this, was to point out the ways that things like audience analysis and other lessons can be used in broader contexts. I try to help students make these connections to things that are important to them so they can apply them in the future. However, I do think this is something we could all be doing more of in our teaching. I think choosing the key ideas we want to emphasize over the course of the semester and connecting them to other aspects of our student’s lives and career goals can help us do that. This article made me hopeful that even if students don’t know it they are taking lessons with them when they leave the classroom rather than just learning something to forget it when class is done.

What do other people think about this? What are some other ways we can improve transfer even if it is invisible?

-Rachel