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Schema Theory & Cognitive Constructivism

How do students organize their thoughts, incoming information and new ideas? How are they able to draw conclusions and make connections?

Part of this has to do with the student's Schema or their social illustrations and representations to organize, understand and categorize knowledge and skills (things, events and procedures) 

Schema Theory = Cognitive Psychology =  Piaget's theory of Cognitive Constructivism
  • Children construct their knowledge using social and mental concepts
  • Students are active learners and create mental representations
  • Assimilation v. Accommodation 
    •  Interaction between existing and incoming information in order to achieve stability 
    • Assimilation is when a student is able to understand and incorporate new information
    • Accommodation is when the student changes his/her pre-existing knowledge to adjust with the new information.  Can also be seen as reconstructing their knowledge 
EXAMPLE

When I was observing a classroom for my Community Service Project last semester, I saw how teacher provided multiple ways for the students to develop their own schema and organization strategies. They used a lot of visual diagrams, outlines, and study guides. In the 3rd grade reading class, the teacher was teaching her students active reading. The teacher gave each student different color highlighters and pencils to keep track of the information. She had them highlight the main idea and underline the supporting details. This strategy helps students organize and process the information of a given story. The students already know how to read and take in information, but by highlighting and underlining, they are learning how to better understand the story, its significance and purpose.

-Rebecca   

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