Education Program Officer Marc Chun explains the concept of “transfer” in education—taking “what was learned in one situation and apply it to new situations”—with an extended (but not belabored) analogy at The Huffington Post: 

The authors of the National Research Council publication Education for Life and Work made the case that the ultimate goal of education is the ability to take what was learned in one situation and apply it to new situations. This is called “transfer,” which stems from what they called “deeper learning”–mastering content through critical thinking and problem solving, communicating effectively, collaborative problem solving, learning how to learn, and maintaining an “academic mindset” (or the belief in yourself as a learner).

We know that this transfer happens somehow; I then wonder what schools can do to promote and measure it. To illustrate, if you’ll allow me to drop a whole load of meta on you right now, I’m going to try to solve this problem by applying what I’ve learned from my doctoral training years of research obsession with Hollywood secret agents.

The whole thing is definitely worth reading.