Year: 2009
Type: article
Abstract: The central challenge to educators in the liberal arts as in all areas of study is transfer of learning i.e. how can we design learning environments and instruction to that students will be able to use what they learn in appropriate new contexts? Alfred North Whitehead described this as the problem of ‘inert knowledge’ nearly a century ago and Dewey noted that instruction which helps students reproduce what is studied on exams might not produce the depth of understanding that allows for recognizing the relevance of what is known to a particular situation and the ability to apply it. Knowledge that is not conditionalized (i.e. in which the learner does not know when where and why it is to be used) is inert.
Author: Janet Eyler
Institution: Clark University
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1480568330