How students organize knowledge

What you can do in the classroom

Examples

Reveal and enhance knowledge organization

Show "big picture" organizational structure of course ?? how key concepts of class inter?relate ?? and refer to this structure explicitly over the semester.
Have students draw a concept map. This will illustrate not only their prior knowledge but how they are organizing it.
Have students complete a sorting task (e.g., sort different problems, concepts, or situations into categories).
Pay attention to the patterns of errors to see if a student is consistently misapplying a formula or strategy.
Have students work with multiple organizational structures by asking them to categorize items in one schema and then another.

Adapted from How Learning Works: Seven Research?Based Principles for Smart Teaching (2010, Ambrose et al.)

Download a pdf of all 7 principles, including ideas for classroom implementation.