Chapter 1, page 21
Problem 1.1 Introduction: Understanding students’ thinking: Transfer
A teacher, Celeste, is having her second graders read a story that is very similar to Aesop’s famous fable
about the tortoise and the hare, which her students read two months ago. In today’s story, a girl
(Haylie) and her younger sister (Katrina) are racing to see who can finish their chores first. Haylie is
nearly finished but then pauses to talk with her friend on the phone, and before she notices, her
younger sister finishes first.
Celeste wonders if her students can transfer their knowledge of the moral of the story of the tortoise
and the hare (“slow but steady wins the race”) to help them understand this story. Here are her
conversations with two students, Jeannie and Andy:
Celeste: Jeannine, what do you think is the lesson of this story?
Jeanine: That you shouldn’t talk on the phone when we should be working.
Celeste: Does this story remind you of any other story we’ve read this year?
Jeannie: No. I can’t think of any.
Celeste: How about the tortoise and the hare? Do you remember that story?
Jeannie: Oh, yeah! Haylie is like the hare. She was fast but stopped! And Katrina is like the turtle!
She was slower, but she kept going. It’s just like that—slow but steady will be the winner.
Celeste: Andy, what do you think is the lesson of this story?
Andy: You have to work hard.
Celeste: Does this story remind you of any other story we’ve read this year?
Andy: No. We didn’t read about two sisters.
Celeste: How about the tortoise and the hare? Do you remember that story?
Andy: Yeah. We learned, like, slow and steady, then you can win the race. The turtle was slow, but
it kept going.
Celeste: Does that have anything to do with this story?
Andy: A little, it’s like, there’s a turtle and a hare, but this story doesn’t have any animals like that.
Evaluate the extent to which Jeannie and Andy were able to transfer their knowledge about “The
Tortoise and the Hare” to understand the new story about Haylie and Katrina.
Response: Jeannie was not able to spontaneously recall “The Tortoise and the Hare,” but once she was
prompted by the teacher, she was able both to recall the story and to make the connections very
clearly. She understood that Haylie is like the hare, that Katrina is like the tortoise (or, as she says, like
the turtle), and that the moral of the stories are the same.
Andy, on the other hand, is not able to transfer knowledge of the Aesop fable even when
prompted. He recalls the moral, and he also connects the moral to the turtle’s action, so it is clear that
he both remembers the story and understands it. However, even after prompting, he is unable to
transfer his knowledge to this story. He seems to be looking for similarities at the level of whether the
characters are animals, not in terms of the deeper theme or moral of the story.