Chapter 1 of this book outlines the learning transfer mental model—a way of making sense of new topics and fields that help us to grasp the overall structure of our world. We explain what learning transfer is and how it works, and how we can use this relatively simple model to think about and design curriculum and learning experiences. Most importantly, we can teach our students how to use the mental model so that they can become their own teachers—especially so they can effectively draw upon their previous learning when they encounter completely new and different situations or challenges.