Welcome back to Praxis trifft Evidenz. Today we will look at how knowledge is actually in the minds of our students and how you can address these inner structures. Schemata is an important term. You can imagine a schema as a knowledge package a kind of template that we understand the world with. Let's take the example of the Schema bird. It typically contains the bird's feathers can fly and lays eggs. Not every bird fits perfectly. The penguin does not fly, the ostrich lays eggs, but they cannot fly. But we still sort it under the bird, because enough fits. Translated to school your students have schemata for breakage photosynthesis or poem analysis but also for math or dictation. A special form of schemata is scripts, i.e. typical processes. The classic example is the restaurant visit. Place, read a map, order, eat, pay, go. In class you have scripts for example we conduct an experiment we write a classwork or we do station learning. If you make these scripts transparent you reduce insecurity and cognitive load. Children who know how a classwork typically works can concentrate on working on the tasks and not on whether they are allowed to show up in between or when they have to give up. A third term is mental models. They describe how learners imagine the way of the world. For example electricity is consumed in the battery and then flows less strongly. Or heavy things fall faster than light. These models are often naive, but stable. And they are worth gold for you because they explain why certain errors keep appearing. What does all this mean for your class? First, activate knowledge systematically. If schemata and scripts are the key you have to get them at the beginning of an hour. A short brainstorming phase like what you can think of for breakage, a concept map or mind map on the board pictures or examples to which the classic and positive experiences are linked. This way you use existing structures and the new knowledge immediately has an anchor. Second, explicitly invoke new content on schemata. Instead of today we do photosynthesis you could say you already know the scheme plant needs water and light to grow. Today we add a new puzzle part to this scheme. What actually happens on the board? Make clear which old scheme is meant which new element is added and what changes in understanding. Consciously build up and reflect scripts. Especially in elementary school and lower grades it is worthwhile to teach scripts explicitly. For example, how does an experiment work with us? Write down assumptions, get material, have your structure checked, review, write observations, discuss results. If you pull through this script a few times it becomes automatism and creates free space for thinking about content instead of its course. Fourth, work with mental models instead of ignoring them. What do you think happens with electricity when we connect another lamp? Why do heavy things seem to fall faster? Let false models become explicit before you irritate them. Good conceptual change needs a noticeable discrepancy. The experiment shows something different than my model and a better alternative that you build up together. Fifth, visualize what happens in your head. You can make schematars scripts and mental models accessible with simple visualizations. Boxes with arrows empty slots that you fill together small comics or storyboards for typical processes. This way you not only convey content but also a piece of metacognition. This is how your brain organizes knowledge and you can actively use it. Sixth, the cognitive map is also important. It shows how different schematars are connected to each other. If students have the scheme of fish and we are talking about mammals in the water like whales then the map is important to see that whales have water connection but they are mammals and breathe air. This is another node than fish. The connections make knowledge stable. Finally, a suggestion for your next class. Take a topic that you have to teach and think about beforehand. What scheme is behind it? Which script? What typical false mental models are to be expected? Then build up a single question at the beginning of the class that addresses exactly these structures. You will notice that the rest of the class becomes clearer for you and for the students. That was the second episode of Practice meets Evidence. In the next episode we will talk about how information can be stored in memory and why the context in which it is learned is so important.