Schema Theory

"What is Learning?" is a question that is linked to "What is Knowledge?".  Learning, in it's many forms, is gaining knowledge.  I had a student in my math class today, as reviewed our test we took last time, get very upset.  In problems where the instructions said, "Round answer to the nearest tenth?", and the calculated answer was 16.732591, he had put 16.80 and lost 1/2 of a point.  In class we had discussed exactly how to round, what the rounding means, how to 'say' numbers in English phrases, and how to report them.  What he had written was rounded correctly in the right decimal place, but adding the extra zero made the number "sixteen and eighty-hundredths" not "sixteen and eight-tenths".  He tried all ways to justify it form other classes where many numbers are reported in 2 decimal places and that he 'thought' he s=was doing it 'better'.  I couldn't help but think of a statement in the AndersClick here to read more »

The learning theory of the week, schema theory made for some interesting reading.  At first glance the theory seems quite close to last week's theory, meaning.  It took me a while to understand how the two compare because they both deal with previous knowledge as being an important factor in new learning.  While the way I see learning hasn't really change from last week, the schema theory shows that the previous knowledge that a student brings to the learning can be more difficult to remedy than I thought before. 

Previous knowledge, or schemata, can take the form of prejudices and those are hard to see past.  It is easy to see how a person's past can show new concepts in a certain "light" that can change how they are perceived.