Apperception is "the process by which new experience is assimilated to and transformed by the residuum of past experience of an individual to form a new whole."
Leibniz defines apperception as “consciousness, or the reflective knowledge of this internal state.” “Something not given to all souls, nor at all times to a given soul.”
Simply, it is to perceive new experience in relation to past experience. Apperception is thus a general term for all mental processes in which a presentation is brought into connection with an already existent and systematized mental conception, and thereby is classified, explained or, in a word, understood.
Example: A rich child and a poor child walking together come across a $10 bill on the sidewalk. The rich child says it is not lot of money whereas the poor child says it is a lot of money. The difference lies in how they apperceive the same event – the lens of past experience through which they see and value (or devalue) the money.
Application: In education the teacher should fully acquaint himself with the mental development of the pupil, in order that he may make full use of what the pupil already knows.
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Sources:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/leibniz-mind/#AppDesUnc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apperception#cite_note-Dagobert_D_1972-1
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