Connecting Past Experiences with Current Learning Experiences

There are many factors that a teacher needs to consider when planning lessons. Students learn better when they are able to connect past experiences with current learning objectives. If the student has learned something about the topic in the past, helping the student to connect that information to a new dimension of the topic will help it make more sense. It is also best to start off with a broad scope of a topic and then methodically narrow it down and refine it. For example, in a grammar lesson about verb tense usage, the teacher may present sentences for correction that include various mistakes. By asking the students to correct the mistakes, she is letting them revisit prior skills of editing while introducing new skills.

The sentences may include errors in punctuation, capitalization, and wrong verb tense. The new content may focus on verb tenses, but allowing students to make corrections on capitalization and punctuation which they already studied and enjoyed doing, will boost their confidence and let the teacher gauge how well they may already recognize verb tense usage. This is a method of activating prior knowledge which is key to helping students understand new knowledge (Slavin, 2006, p. 198). When students apply prior knowledge to a new concept it makes more sense and helps them make a connection in order to process the information. Once she has developed a base of understanding she can focus more on verb tenses. The students have made the connection that editing involves not only what they have already learned, i.e. capitalization and punctuation, but also whether the verb is in the correct tense. The teacher has successfully incorporated prior knowledge and learning into the lesson in order to solidify her lesson.

The lesson example above relates to the schema theory. “The schema theory is information that fits into an existing schema is more easily understood, learned, and retained than information that does not fit into an existing schema (Slavin, 2006, p. 191)”. In the example, the teacher has linked prior editing skills to her new lesson and shown the students that verb tense is also an integral part of the editing process. By employing their past knowledge of editing, she is using that knowledge background to further embed the information. “Learners who know a great deal about a subject have more well-developed schemata for incorporating new knowledge (Slavin, p. 191)”. Again, using the editing of sentences, which the students were already familiar with, helped them to understand that verb tense usage is also part of the editing process.