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Feature


How do you describe a house?


Examing people’s schemas and mental models: why understanding their function is crucial for successful learning design, by John Curran, Digital Learning Architect


H


ave you ever thought about how you think? Or about how you use your knowledge or expertise to


perform, or to make decisions? As we learn more about how the brain works, two key concepts appear to play a major role in powering our expertise – these are schema and mental models.


What is a schema? The term ‘schema’ was coined by Swiss educational psychologist Jean Piaget ac n 1 e defined schea as categories of knowledge that help us to


W hereas s c h e m a s store frameworks of useful information,


m e n t a l m od e l s allow us to put that information into action. B oth work hand in hand when we hav e to do something


interpret and understand the world. In Piaget’s view, a schema includes both a category of knowledge and the process of obtaining that knowledge. Consider a house. If you ask people


to describe a house they will usually give very similar descriptions. A building made of stone or bricks with windows and drs  ae t r re rs and possibly a garden. But if you ask an architect to describe a house they are more likely to provide a much more complex description. That’s because an architect’s schema for a house is considerably more developed. An architect is a house expert. We have schemas for pretty much


everything, but the ones we use most will be the best developed and the most customised depending on our life experiences. Schemas can be used to define ects sch as hses t as abstract concepts ranging from eating, to travel and also to the relationships we have with each other. Our schemas grow in complexity as we


> Learning Magazine | 19


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