Development > MVC (Model View Controller) > View > Theme

Elements are special technique to render one template inside another. Most commonly we do it in Layout. A method used to call the element in a particular location. See bellow example:

$this->callElement("header")

This method attache the template file from below location:

/development/view/[theme]/layout/elements/header.phtml

We can also call like bellow:
$this->callElement("default/tpl/footer")

Location of this element is : /development/view/[theme]/layout/elements/default/tpl/footer.phtml