¶ … Learning
How the Previous Experiences, Interests and Thought Processes of Students Influence the Learning of Current Content Area Concepts
The objective of this study is to examine how the previous experiences, interests, and thought processes of students can influence the learning of current content area concepts. This work will examine the link between past experiences of students, student interests and present learning and address key principles of brain-based learning including the importance of meaningful learning, knowledge background. This work will examine how consideration of past experiences, learning and student interest should be an important part of lesson planning for the teacher. Specific examples will be included.
Prior knowledge includes the learner's attitudes and experiences. Attitudes include the learner's beliefs about themselves as learners and the learners' awareness of their own individual strengths and interests. Experiences include normal activities that are relative to learning and the events in the lives of learners that result in background understanding as well as the leaner's family and community experiences that the learner brings to the classroom. Prior knowledge involves possession of information about the material being learned in terms of content, topics, and concepts. (Kujawa & Huske,...
Prior knowledge determines what we learn from experience." (p.1) Prior knowledge is reported to force "a theoretical shift to viewing learning as 'conceptual change'. (Roschelle, 2013, p.1) The work of Willis (2011) states that application of knowledge is needed for learners to retain that knowledge. Applied learning activities resulted in the activation of the "isolated small neural networks, facts, or procedures, which then undergo the cellular changes of neuroplasticity that link them into larger neural circuits of related information. These extensive neural circuits integrate new information when they are a) simultaneously activated and b) when they recognize patterns in common." (Willis, 2011, p.1) The related categories of information are expanded (as in Piaget's schema) through "executive function activities" resulted in the…
