Connecting Real-Life Experiences in Lesson Plans

As humans, we are constantly learning. Everything we take in through our senses and deem worthy of remembrance is stored away in our brains. Things that students recall from the past can affect their learning. Previously learned information can influence a student's opinion or perception of a lesson. If students have past experience with, or an interest in, certain information it will certainly make learning something related to that information much easier than if the students had no experience or interest. In fact, students without appropriate past experience may have a difficult time participating in or progressing through the curriculum. Because of this, it is important for teachers to take into account the past experience and knowledge of students when creating lessons for the classroom. There are many approaches to assist teachers in accomplishing this goal.

Schema Theory

The schema theory is a theory "stating that information is stored in long-term memory in schemata which provide a structure for making sense of new information" (Slavin, 2003, p. 200). It is the teacher's responsibility to facilitate the construction of the schemata, as well as assist students with connecting ideas. This is essential to the comprehension of information. Teachers can aid students in building prerequisite intelligence, in addition to reviewing what students have already learned about new material before introducing it. Many learner difficulties could be eliminated with sufficient general knowledge (Davis, 1998). Due to this, teachers need to consider the information that is already stored, and what information they would like to be stored, when writing lesson plans.

Background Knowledge