Abstract
The theme of this volume is teaching for transfer. This seems a reasonable topic for us to address. After all, we have been concerned with this topic one way or another for all our professional lives (Brown, 1974, 1978, 1989; Brown & Campione, 1981, 1984; Campione & Beaton, 1973; Campione & Brown, 1974, 1978; Campione, Brown, & Ferrara, 1982). Currently, our research program is to reconceptualize and redesign classrooms, with the aim of Fostering Communities of Learners (FCL; Brown & Campione, 1990, 1994). The goal is for students to come to grips with the major agendas of schooling. Certainly, transfer must be a major issue. However, in the context of extended classroom interventions, it is not easy to know how to look for, or conceptualize, transfer. Transfer is most centrally a theoretical term, and it is not always obvious what its referents are. Nor is it clear that a single theory could exist to cover the range of phenomena to which the term might be, and has been, applied.