IPT 301 Week 5 Assessment

1. I think the 2 most important instructional strategies are emphasizing the importance of understanding material, and practicing basic skills to a level of automaticity. I think these are useful to my teaching because if children realize how important it is to actually understand material they are more likely to pay attention and try to learn the material in depth. If they understand the material in depth they can most likely apply what they have learned to other situations across the curriculum. They may also remember it better. I think its important students practice the skills they learn so that they can reach automaticity because this leads to mastery. When they can practice a skill without having to think about it much it will be easier for them to use in their everyday lives and evaluations.

2. Low-Road Transfer: extensive practice of a skill leading to ability to perform the skill with little thought or effort and in a variety of contexts.

Example 1: A boy practicing taking goal shots in soccer so many times when he actually has to perform a goal shot in a real game it is natural to him. He also becomes very good at aiming where to kick the ball in kick-ball.

Example 2: A girl practicing adding fractions over and over in math class and at home with half-eaten food and blocks. She becomes so skilled at it she often analyzes objects in her everyday activities as fractions without really thinking about it.

High-Road Transfer: purposely and consciously applying learned information to another situation.

Example 1: A child learning that when doing word searches she can search for the beginning letter of the word throughout the whole text first to see if the word is attached. Then she applies this strategy to a completely new and more challenging word search.

Example 2: A child learns about fractions specifically using circles. She then uses fractions to tell the time on a round clock. (A quarter after, a quarter till, etc.)

3. The type of transfer I see used most often is high-road transfer. Students often learn specific principles and techniques one week and then the next week they will apply that knowledge in a different way or in a different subject but with more added to it, like scaffolding. For example they will learn to add numbers for one unit then they will assign numbers to money and add money using what they learned about adding numbers.

4. I have used an algorithm when I use formulas to solve math problems for example, the FOIL formula for multiplying numbers in parentheses. There is a specific sequence in steps; you multiply the first numbers, then outside, then inside, then last. Finally you add them.

I have used heurstics when working with decimals. Sometimes when the decimal is very long, you approximate, like saying 1.00000000000001 is just 1.