Your linked post from Bryan Caplan isn't compelling that transfer of learning is "virtually non-existent." Anecdotally, I agree that a good deal of teaching do

Your linked post from Bryan Caplan isn't compelling that transfer of learning is "virtually non-existent." Anecdotally, I agree that a good deal of teaching does not produce learning that is durable or transfers. That doesn't mean it isn't possible. Enter Scott Carrell and James West's study at the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) [0]. The title and abstract bury the lede and actually misdirect. It talks about professor evaluations, tenure, and teacher quality. The key findings from this study are about the type of pedagogy that create durable and transferable learning. They compared pedagogical styles of teachers in first year calculus classes compared to how durable and transferable the knowledge was that cadets gained in each class. It was a totally unique environment that allowed for it to be randomized, controlled, and to study effects beyond one year. I have never seen a better study in education. The tl;dr is that pedagogy that forces students to engage in desirable difficulties [1] produces learning that is more durable and can transfer to different domains. The catch is two-fold. Students rate this type of teaching poorly. They also get worse grades at first even though the long-term payoff is much better. [0] https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w14081/w14081.pdf https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w14081/w140... [1] https://bjorklab.psych.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2016/04/EBjork_RBjork_2011.pdf https://bjorklab.psych.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/...