I sent an e-mail to our CUWP group, asking about the use of imitation in their classes. Below is Eric Ferrin's response. I've bolded a portion that is certainly a concern for all of us -- helping students transfer their learning to other writing situations.
Much of math is imitation.
For example, you show a student a problem, you describe the steps to solving it in order to get an answer. Then you hand the students a problem that is similar in nature, and they have to imitate the steps in order to solve the problem.
Imitation has it's difficulties, however. Students can imitate a certain type of problem, but when you change it just a little, the students feel that they no longer understand how to do it. After the imitation to teach how to do something, you need to make sure that find a way to make a connection to be able to achieve transference. It is this part that I am working on making sure I establish better into my own math curriculum.
I hope this helps.
Eric
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