Transfer and communication are crucial outcomes of Learning.
Transfer is the ability to apply knowledge or skills learned in one context to a new situation, while communication is the process of sharing and exchanging information to build a common understanding.
A result of focusing the concept of learning on classrooms is that it raises issues of usefulness or transfer, which is the ability to use knowledge or skills in situations beyond the ones in which they are acquired.
Learning to read and learning to solve arithmetic problems, for example, are major goals of the primary school curriculum because those skills are meant to be used not only inside the classroom, but outside as well.
The learning styles associated with communication are visual, auditory and kinaesthetic. For example, for children with speech and language disorders, auditory processing may be slower or obstructed, so a verbal learning method may need to be adopted by the teacher.
Communication can be catered for in different ways, such as visual cues which allows a child to effectively communicate with the teacher.
Lev Vygotsky (who came after Jean Piaget), said:
‘What the child can do in cooperation today he can do alone tomorrow. Therefore, the only good kind of instruction is that which marches ahead of development and leads it. For a time, our schools favoured the ‘complex’ system of instruction, which was believed to be adapted to the child’s way of thinking. In offering the child problems he was able to handle without help, this method failed to utilise the zone of proximal development and to lead the child to what he could not yet do.’ Quoted in Alexander, RJ, 2000.
Piagetian ideas were dominant in the 1960s and 1970s and expressed the importance of a child’s interaction with the world, and the importance of teachers’ ability to assess a child’s readiness for learning, but what continued on from this under Vygotsky’s research was the importance of dialogue the social context of learning and teachers’ ability to support a pupil’s learning beyond their current stage of understanding, or perhaps development.
- Easy Zone – What the student can accomplish without any help
- Zone of Proximal Development – What the student can do with help from a ‘knowledgeable other’
- Hard Zone – What the student cannot accomplish / beyond the student’s abilities
Vygotsky differed from Piaget in that he emphasised the role of social interaction in a child’s development, he believed that learning takes place when a child is supported through their zone of proximal development by a more knowledgeable other such as a parent teacher or peer. This zone of proximal development lies between a child’s current abilities and their potential abilities.
An enlightened mother is likely to support their child in moving through their zone of proximal development by deliberately challenging their abilities and understanding but not so much as to cause the child to experience frustration or failure.
The child has to have the necessary skills to meet and understand the challenge while also being supported in order to make progress. If the child does not have the necessary skills, then further investigation is required.
Source: Do primary educational environments and experiences shape our motivation to further educate ourselves as adults, By Kelly Foxhall-Ridgeway doctorate link
