The National Academies Press is releasing a new book (report): Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century.  As I am sitting at the National Science Foundation’s Advanced Technological Education’s Principal Investigator’s Conference listening to a discussion, a concept, which came up in my dissertation work has come up.  I really like they way it is conceptualized.

The term?  DEEPER LEARNING

Deeper learning is the process of LEARNING FOR TRANSFER.  Transferable knowledge includes both CONTENT and PROCEDURAL knowledge.

When I wrote my dissertation, one of my major codes was DEEP UNDERSTANDING.  This is how I defined it at that time in the appendix (p. 264):

Having a deep understanding. This understanding usually goes beyond scientific knowledge, which would be coded as ‘specialized understanding.’ This is more of a conceptual understanding with scientific, social, political, interpersonal, theoretical, and/or practical realizations. It is seeing ‘the big picture,’ beyond the scope of the scientific aspects of the project.

And isn’t this what we want for greater engagement?  Learning that goes beyond the four walls of the classroom . . . Learning that has value.