Transfer Map

Susannah Howe, Smith College, showe@smith.edu

Team (or individual) activity for students to visually display the skills/knowledge/ attitudes that they will "transfer out" of that class and to their next endeavors. I usually have students do an individual assignment before class in which they identify their own transferrable skills and then spend one class period for teams to aggregate their collective transfer items and make a visual map (think concept map, but focused on transfer items, not concepts;
also picture markers, stickers, tape ribbons, other colorful art supplies...)

transferable skills/knowledge/attitudes, professional development

Intended for seniors about to graduate (works really well in a capstone course) but it could also work thinking about what transfers out of one course and into the next one. 

·      Applies to many courses/contexts.

·      Gets students to think about how their current course learning extends beyond the course itself.

·      Facilitates team discussion about joint learning.

Takes a whole class to complete; even better with a pre-assignment

Requires a basic explanation of a concept map and a short discussion of what is meant by "transfer" and "transfer map."  (Note, I intentionally don't give many instructions, so as to leave the activity fairly open for student interpretation.) See http://cmap.ihmc.us/docs/ConceptMap.html for a good overview and nice visual of a concept map.

Works best when students do a pre-assignment listing/discussing their future plans (after graduation or, if they're not seniors, upcoming courses/internships) and then their top transferable skills/knowlegde.

Could be done individually.