The Information Processing Approach to Cognition

This article is a great resource that can be used to learn how information is stored in memory. It discusses several different theories of information processing where you begin to see the various viewpoints on cognitive psychology. It does share a few general principles that are common amongst cognitive psychologist allowing the reader to grasp the foundation.
The first is the assumption of a limited capacity of the mental system. This means that the amount of information that can be processed by the system is constrained in some very important ways. Bottlenecks, or restrictions in the flow and processing of information, occur at very specific points.
A second principle is that a control mechanism is required to oversee the encoding, transformation, processing, storage, retrieval and utilization of information. That is, not all of the processing capacity of the system is available; an executive function that oversees this process will use up some of this capability. When one is learning a new task or is confronted with a new environment, the executive function requires more processing power than when one is doing a routine task or is in a familiar environment.
A third principle is that there is a two-way flow of information as we try to make sense of the world around us. We constantly use information that we gather through the senses (often referred to as bottom-up processing) and information we have stored in memory (often called top-down processing) in a dynamic process as we construct meaning about our environment and our relations to it. This is somewhat analogous to the difference between inductive reasoning (going from specific instances to a general conclusion) and deductive reasoning (going from a general principle to specific examples.) A similar distinction can be made between using information we derive from the senses and that generated by our imaginations.
A fourth principle generally accepted by cognitive psychologists is that the human organism has been genetically prepared to process and organize information in specific ways. For example, a human infant is more likely to look at a human face than any other stimulus. Given that the field of focus of a human infant is 12 to 18 inches, one can surmise that this is an important aspect of the infant's survival. Other research has discovered additional biological predispositions to process information. For example, language development is similar in all human infants regardless of language spoken by adults or the area in which they live (e.g., rural versus urban, Africa versus Europe.) All human infants with normal hearing babble and coo, generate first words, begin the use of telegraphic speech (e.g., ball gone), and overgeneralize (e.g., using "goed to the store" when they had previously used "went to the store") at approximately the same ages. The issue of language development is an area where cognitive and behavioral psychologists as well as cognitive psychologists with different viewpoints have fought many battles regarding the processes underlying human behavior. Needless to say the disussion continues. (Huitt, W. 2003) The development of concepts is thought to be one of the challenging issues of cognitive learning. Through all the different theories discussed, it provides a useful map to providing information processing in the classroom.

Resource
Huitt, W. (2003). The information processing approach to cognition. Educational Psychology Interactive. Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University. Retrieved [date] from, http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/cogsys/infoproc.html