Teaching for transfer

In this week’s reading we were introduced to a concept called “Teaching for transfer”. Essentially this concept helps students use what they have learned and apply these attained skills in their future endeavors. I think the tactic of emphasizing the importance of genre awareness can be effective for many students. For example, Beaufort provides suggestions on effective ways to teach genre awareness, and the one that stood out to me the most was: Giving students a snippet of a short reading without providing any other information of the content and having them distinguish the genre and its properties. This is an effective way for students in their future writing to enhance critical thinking skills and analyze the content of reading materials better. I will say that I have never thought about if I use genre in my daily life, but now that I am saying it out loud, perhaps I do. For example, when I am at work ( a professional setting) and I receive an email, I must analyze the email and follow the genre of the email in order to send a formal reply. I also do believe it is pertinent for teachers who are teaching writing intensive course to emphasize the importance of effective writing skills. As students you are aware of the teachers who are just here to complete a job versus the teachers who deeply care about their student’s growth. Now as a teacher, you want your students to retain the knowledge that you have provided and hope that they are able to use it in the future. Truthfully, the theme that I am noticing in our two readings is the importance of caring about your students. By that I mean, teachers should be creating goals to provide their students with content and direction that they can apply in their future academics, jobs, and in life. 

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