Mental Filing Cabinets: How We Organize What We Know

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Mental Filing Cabinets: How We Organize What We Know

Educational Psychology · Chapter 2: Memory, Thinking, and the Learning MindSection 2.7 · lesson 12 of 1009 min · free with a free account

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In this lesson

Schemas, scripts, semantic networks, and the value of activating prior knowledge.

  • Define schemas and explain how they guide perception and encoding
  • Distinguish assimilation from accommodation
  • Describe semantic networks and spreading activation
  • Use concept mapping as both instruction and formative assessment

Transcript

Everything said in the video, section by section (1,262 words). Read along, or search it.

Memory, Thinking, and the Learning Mind

Mental Filing Cabinets: How We Organize What We Know

Tell someone a story, wait a week, and ask them to retell it. The details will have shifted, and they will have shifted in a direction. The story will have moved toward what the listener already expected. That is not a defect of memory. It is how memory organizes anything. This section is about the structures that do the organizing. Schemas. Scripts. Semantic networks. Concept maps. We will look at what happens when new information does not fit. And at why the first five minutes of a lesson decide so much of the rest. The practical claim is simple, and it is strong. There is no such thing as teaching into an empty space.

Schemata

Knowledge Is Stored as Structure

Knowledge in long-term memory is not stored as a pile of isolated facts. It is an interconnected network of organized structures. Frederic Bartlett gave us the concept in nineteen thirty-two. It came out of a pioneering study of how people remember stories. He called these structures schemas, or schemata. A schema is an organized cluster of knowledge, beliefs and expectations. It covers a particular domain, event, or concept. And schemas do three jobs, which is why they matter so much. They guide perception, which decides what a student notices at all. They influence encoding, which decides what gets stored. And they shape retrieval, which decides what comes back later. Every stage of the memory system is filtered through them.

Two Responses

Assimilation and Accommodation

When learners encounter new information, they never process it in a vacuum. They activate a relevant schema first. Then one of two things happens, and the difference matters. Assimilation is when the new information fits. It is absorbed into the existing structure, and the structure does not change. Accommodation is when the new information does not fit. It is too discrepant, so the existing schema has to be modified. Or an entirely new schema has to be created. Those two words come from Piaget, and they are the same idea in another vocabulary. Which tells you something about how central this is. Prior knowledge shapes every new learning experience a student ever has. Not most of them. Every one.

Scripts

Schemas for What Happens Next

Scripts are a specific kind of schema, and they handle time. They represent knowledge about the typical sequence of events. In familiar situations, that sequence is largely predictable. Roger Schank and Robert Abelson described scripts in nineteen seventy-seven. They defined them as cognitive structures for well-known scenarios. What happens when you go to a restaurant. What happens when you board an airplane. What happens when you attend a classroom lesson. Scripts let people navigate routine situations efficiently. You do not consciously deliberate about each step, and that is the point. The efficiency is not laziness. It frees attention for whatever is genuinely new.

Classroom Scripts

What Students Expect a Lesson to Do

In education, scripts shape how students read a lesson. A student who has internalized a classroom script knows what is coming. They know what it means when the teacher presents a problem on the board. They know when to raise a hand for a question. None of that has to be re-decided each time. Now consider what happens when instruction deviates from the expected script. Students may experience confusion, and confusion is usually treated as a failure. But it can be a teachable moment, if it is managed skillfully. Surprise enhances attention, and it enhances encoding. So a broken script is a tool rather than an accident. It is worth breaking deliberately. And worth being ready to explain the moment you do.

Key Idea

Everything New Arrives Through Something Old

Here is the key idea of this section, stated plainly. Schemas are the brain's organizational framework for all prior knowledge. New learning is always interpreted through the lens of existing schemas. Always. There is no unfiltered channel into a student's head. So a teacher who activates relevant schemas before instruction is doing something specific. They are providing a cognitive scaffold. That scaffold makes new information easier to encode, to understand, and to retrieve. All three, from one move. This reframes what the opening of a lesson is for. Those five minutes are not a warm-up or a settling activity. They decide what structure the next forty minutes will be filed into.

Semantic Networks

Nodes, Links, and Spreading Activation

Semantic networks give us a model of how the whole system is wired. Concepts are organized in long-term memory through a web of associative links. Each concept is a node in that network. Nodes are connected by labeled links that specify the relationship. Is a. Has a. Causes. The label carries real information. And then something useful happens when a node is activated. When one concept is activated during thinking or reading, activation spreads through the network to related nodes. This is called spreading activation. It makes associated concepts more accessible than they were a moment ago. That is the mechanism behind priming. Asking about one concept quietly raises the accessibility of everything connected to it.

Concept Maps

Making the Network Visible

Concept maps make a semantic network visible on paper. Joseph Novak first developed them in the nineteen seventies. He built them as a teaching and learning tool, not as a diagram style. A concept map is a visual representation of a semantic network. And building one does something that reading cannot. Students creating a map are forced to identify relationships explicitly. Not just the concepts, but how each one connects to the others. That requirement deepens understanding, and it builds a richer network. Research supports concept mapping in two roles. As a learning strategy, and as an assessment tool. It is especially valuable for complex, interconnected content. There, a list of correct definitions would reveal almost nothing.

The Vocabulary

Six Structures, Precisely Defined

Six terms, and it is worth being precise about each. A schema is an organized knowledge cluster for a domain, concept or event type. A script is a schema for the expected sequence of events in a familiar situation. Assimilation is fitting new information into an existing schema without restructuring. Accommodation is modifying a schema, or building a new one, to fit discrepant information. A semantic network is a web of concepts connected by labeled relational links. A concept map is a visual diagram of those relationships in a domain. Notice how the list moves from the mental to the visible. The first four describe what is happening inside a student's head. The last two are ways of getting it onto a page where you can look at it.

In Practice

Five Minutes Before an Ecosystems Unit

Here is one activity that uses almost everything in this section. Before a unit on ecosystems, a science teacher makes a request. Draw everything you know about food chains, as a concept map. Not a test. Not graded. Five minutes, before any new content. That single task does three jobs at once. It activates prior schemata, so new material has somewhere to attach. It surfaces misconceptions, which is the job people underrate. A misconception that stays hidden gets built on for six weeks. And it gives the teacher formative data to guide the rest of the unit. She now knows what she is actually teaching into. Three jobs, five minutes, no marking.

Why It Matters

New Learning Always Builds on Old

The claim of this section is narrow, and it is strong. New learning always builds on old. There is no such thing as teaching into an empty space. So three habits follow from that. Activate prior schemata before instruction begins. Require students to map relationships, not merely to list facts. And expect misconceptions, then surface them early rather than late. Teachers who do these things are not adding activities. They are harnessing the organizational power of what students already have. New information becomes immediately more meaningful and more memorable. Not because it was taught better, but because it landed somewhere.

About Educational Psychology at UPI Study

Educational Psychology (Psychology 120) is a self-paced online course of 100 video lessons in 11 chapters, from memory, conditioning and child development to motivation, individual differences, assessment, instruction and educational technology. It carries a NCCRS credit recommendation for 3 semester credits.

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Educational Psychology carries a NCCRS credit recommendation. These universities work with NCCRS; some are UPI Study's signed partners. ACE and NCCRS have over 2,100 cooperating colleges that will consider accepting credits; the final decision is with the universities.

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FAQ

Questions students ask us

About Mental Filing Cabinets: How We Organize What We Know

What is a schema in psychology?
A schema is an organized cluster of knowledge, beliefs and expectations about a particular domain, event or concept. Frederic Bartlett introduced the idea in 1932 from studies of how people remember stories, which tended to shift toward what listeners expected. Schemas guide what a learner notices, how new information is encoded and what is later retrieved, so new learning is interpreted through them.
What is a script in cognitive psychology?
A script is a type of schema for the expected sequence of events in a familiar situation, such as eating at a restaurant or boarding a plane. Roger Schank and Robert Abelson described scripts in 1977. They let people handle routines without deliberating at each step, freeing attention for what is new. When a lesson deliberately breaks a classroom script, the surprise can boost attention and encoding.
What is spreading activation in a semantic network?
Spreading activation is the process by which activating one concept makes related concepts more accessible. In a semantic network, concepts are nodes joined by labeled links such as is a, has a or causes. When one node is activated during thinking or reading, activation spreads along those links to connected nodes. This mechanism underlies priming.
How are concept maps used in teaching?
Concept maps, developed by Joseph Novak in the 1970s, are diagrams that make a semantic network visible by showing concepts and the labeled relationships between them. Building one forces students to state how ideas connect, which deepens understanding. Research supports them as both a learning strategy and an assessment tool, and a quick pre-unit map can reveal prior knowledge and hidden misconceptions.

About the Educational Psychology course

How many college credits is Educational Psychology?
Educational Psychology (Psychology 120) carries a NCCRS credit recommendation for 3 semester credits. ACE and NCCRS have over 2,100 cooperating colleges that will consider accepting credits; the final decision is with the universities.
How much does Educational Psychology cost and what is included?
$250, paid once, with lifetime access: all 100 video lessons, a practice quiz after each, the graded work and final exam, and an official transcript when you finish. Students who want several courses choose UPI Study PRO instead.
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UPI Study has signed partner agreements with universities such as Thomas Edison State University, University of the People and Charter Oak State College, and works with universities such as Penn State, SNHU and SUNY. ACE and NCCRS have over 2,100 cooperating colleges that will consider accepting credits; the final decision is with the universities. Use "Find my college" on this page to check yours.
How long does Educational Psychology take?
It is self-paced with no deadlines. The 100 lessons total about 15 hours of video; most students add reading and practice time and finish in a few weeks to a few months, on their own schedule.
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