Information Transfer

This week I would like to reflect on information transfer. In this workshop, we went though the process of information transfer as a way of allowing students to process what they have learnt or as a way of teaching new ideas and concepts. Within literacy learning, the examination of genre and different text types was discussed as way to encourage better analysis of a text and a more pragmatic approach to reading and writing. Students who are given a new genre of text or information through a different medium need to have the ability to transfer the information learnt into a different genre. I remember when you discussed and quoted, “how do I know what I know until I’ve written what I know.” (or something along those lines).

So how do we actually do this in the classroom? We talked about different forms of information transfer such as schematic to prose, prose to schematic, prose to prose, labelling and structural mapping. All of these can be done in the classroom with student. One of the most common forms of information transfer that I have come across in my teaching experiences is in the interpretation of visual texts. Visual texts contain a wealth of information and meaning. Often, students are able to understand or pick up on those meanings, however, when asked to explain how they achieved that understanding, some students find it hard to express the processes of analysis and thought that they went through to achieve those meanings. So in order for them to understand how the text was constructed and how the visual texts work, we can use information transfer activities as a practical way to allow students to engage with the text and approach it from different angle. I believe this does work, as I tend to learn more with visual instructions rather than written instructions.

Now that I think about it more, this type of genre transfer should be applied to my lessons more often.

Finally, I’ll leave you with some pictures of information transfer…

http://gawker.com/359928/dont-cry-for-me-argentina-and-other-pop-songs-expressed-with-graphs