Low road and high road transfer

Low road and high road transfer

1. Low road and high road transfer
Low-road transfer refers to developing some knowledge/skill to a high level of automaticity. It
requires a great deal of practice in varying settings. Examples of areas where automaticity can be
achieved: shoe tying, keyboarding, or steering a car.
High-road transfer involves the cognitive understanding and purposeful and conscious analysis,
mindfulness, and application of strategies that cut across disciplines. In high-road transfer, there is
intentional mindful abstraction of an idea that can transfer, and then conscious and intentional
application of the idea when faced by a problem where the idea may be useful.
High road and low road transfer. Salomon and Perkins (1989, Perkins and Salomon
1987) synthesized findings concerned with transfer by recognizing two distinct but
related mechanisms, the ``low road'' and the ``high road.'' Low road transfer happens
when stimulus conditions in the transfer context are sufficiently similar to those in a
prior context of learning to trigger well-developed semi-automatic responses. In
keeping with the view of Greeno et al. (in press), these responses need not be
mediated by external or mental representations. A relatively reflexive process, low
road transfer figures most often in near transfer. For example, when a person moving
a household rents a small truck for the first time, the person finds that the familiar
steering wheel, shift, and other features evoke useful car-driving responses. Driving
the truck is almost automatic, although in small ways a different task.
High road transfer, in contrast, depends on mindful abstraction from the context of
learning or application and a deliberate search for connections: What is the general
pattern? What is needed? What principles might apply? What is known that might
help? Such transfer is not in general reflexive. It demands time for exploration and the
investment of mental effort. It can easily accomplish far transfer, bridging between
contexts as remote as arteries and electrical networks or strategies of chess play and
politics. For instance, a person new to politics but familiar with chess might carry over
the chess principle of control of the center, pondering what it would mean to control
the political center.

Metacognition
 Preassessments—Encouraging Students to Examine Their Current
Thinking: “What do I already know about this topic that could guide my
learning?”

2.  The Muddiest Point—Giving Students Practice in Identifying
Confusions: “What was most confusing to me about the material explored in
class today?”
 Retrospective Postassessments—Pushing Students to Recognize Conceptual
Change: “Before this course, I thought evolution was… Now I think that
evolution is ….” or “How is my thinking changing (or not changing) over
time?”
 Reflective Journals—Providing a Forum in Which Students Monitor Their
Own Thinking: “What about my exam preparation worked well that I should
remember to do next time? What did not work so well that I should not do next
time or that I should change?”
Next are recommendations for developing a “classroom culture
grounded in metacognition” (p. 116-118):
 Giving Students License to Identify Confusions within the Classroom
Culture: ask students what they find confusing, acknowledge the difficulties
 Integrating Reflection into Credited Course Work: integrate short reflection
(oral or written) that ask students what they found challenging or what
questions arose during an assignment/exam/project
 Metacognitive Modeling by the Instructor for Students: model the thinking
processes involved in your field and sought in your course by being explicit
about “how you start, how you decide what to do first and then next, how you
check your work, how you know when you are done” (p. 118)
To facilitate these activities, she also offers three useful tables:
 Questions for students to ask themselves as they plan, monitor, and evaluate
their thinking within four learning contexts—in class, assignments,
quizzes/exams, and the course as a whole (p. 115)
 Prompts for integrating metacognition into discussions of pairs during clicker
activities, assignments, and quiz or exam preparation (p. 117)
 Questions to help faculty metacognitively assess their own teachin

3. Components of metacognition
Metacognitive Knowledge
Stated very briefly, knowledge of person variables refers to general knowledge about
how human beings learn and process information, as well as individual knowledge of
one's own learning processes. For example, you may be aware that your study session
will be more productive if you work in the quiet library rather than at home where
there are many distractions. Knowledge of task variables include knowledge about the
nature of the task as well as the type of processing demands that it will place upon the
individual. For example, you may be aware that it will take more time for you to read
and comprehend a science text than it would for you to read and comprehend a novel.

Finally, knowledge about strategy variables include knowledge about both cognitive
and metacognitive strategies, as well as conditional knowledge about when and where
it is appropriate to use such strategies.


Metacognitive Regulation
Metacognitive experiences involve the use of metacognitive strategies or
metacognitive regulation (Brown, 1987). Metacognitive strategies are sequential
processes that one uses to control cognitive activities, and to ensure that a cognitive
goal (e.g., understanding a text) has been met. These processes help to regulate and
oversee learning, and consist of planning and monitoring cognitive activities, as well
as checking the outcomes of those activities.

For example, after reading a paragraph in a text a learner may question herself about
the concepts discussed in the paragraph. Her cognitive goal is to understand the text.
Self-questioning is a common metacognitive comprehension monitoring strategy. If
she finds that she cannot answer her own questions, or that she does not understand
the material discussed, she must then determine what needs to be done to ensure that
she meets the cognitive goal of understanding the text. She may decide to go back and
re-read the paragraph with the goal of being able to answer the questions she had
generated. If, after re-reading through the text she can now answer the questions, she
may determine that she understands the material. Thus, the metacognitive strategy of
self-questioning is used to ensure that the cognitive goal of comprehension is met.