Schema

Schema

Schema (schemata, plural) comes from the Greek word σχημα, which means plan. In education, psychology, and cognitive psychology, schemata refer to the structures of knowledge, or building blocks, in the brain that represent different parts of the world as people understand them. Sometimes the schema is referred to as prior knowledge. As people learn, they organize and store new information in the appropriate schemata for future understanding and to build their understanding upon. For example, a young child has a schema in place for dogs. He has s a basic understanding of what dogs are. On a trip to the zoo, he sees a wolf and learns that they are in the dog family. Already having a knowledge base, or schema, of dogs, he then develops some ideas about wolves (they run on all four legs, they bark, they have puppies) and builds on his schema of dogs by adding wolves to that schema.