ausubel's meaningful reception learning

Meaningful Reception Learning

Ausubel

David P. Ausubel was born in 1918 Attended the University of Pennsylvania, taking the pre-medical course and majoring in Psychology In 1973 he retired from academic life to devote full time to his psychiatric practice His principal interests in psychiatry have been general psychopathology, ego development, drug addiction, and forensic psychiatry

In contrast to Bruner, Ausubel believed that people acquire knowledge primarily through RECEPTION, NOT DISCOVERY.

Profile

The overarching idea in Ausubel's theory is that knowledge is hierarchically organized; that new information is meaningful to the extent that it can be related (attached, anchored) to what is already known.

Ausubel stresses meaningful learning, as opposed to rote learning or memorization; and reception, or received knowledge, rather than discovery learning. (Ausubel did not contend that discovery learning doesn't work; but rather that it was not efficient.)

Expository Teaching stresses what is known as Meaningful Verbal Learning – verbal information, ideas, and relationships among ideas, taken together.

Rote memorization is not meaningful learning, because material by rote is not connected with existing knowledge.

Concepts, principles, and ideas are presented and understood using DEDUCTIVE REASONING- from general ideas to specific cases.

Meaningful Reception Learning

Advance Organizers

Ausubel’s strategy always begins with an ADVANCE ORGANIZER.

This is an introductory statement broad enough to cover or include all the information that will follow.

3 Purposes:They direct your attention to what is important in

the coming material,They highlight relationships among ideas that

will be presentedThey remind you of relevant information you

already have

Advance Organizers

2 Categories

1.Comparative2.Expository

Expository

While presenting new materialUse beginning of lessonPresents several encompassing

generalizations where detailed contents will be added later

Example: In an English class, you might begin a large thematic unit on

rites of passage in literature with a very broad statement of the theme and why it has been so central in literature—something like, “A central character coming of age must learn to know himself or herself, often makes some kind of journey of self-discovery, and must decide what in the society is to be accepted and what rejected.”

Comparative

Comparative organizers activate (bring into working memory) already existing schemas.

They remind you of what you already knowExample: A comparative advance organizer for a history

lesson on revolutions might be a statement that contrasts military uprisings with the physical and social changes involved in the Industrial Revolution; you could also compare the common aspects of the French, English, Mexican, Russian, Iranian, and American Revolutions (Salomon & Perkins, 1989).

Ausubel’s Meaningful Learning

Meaningful Reception

Learning Theory

Meaningful Reception

Learning Theory

Concerned with how students learn large amounts of meaningful material from verbal/textual presentations in learning activities

Learning is based on the representational, superordinate and combinatorial processes that occur during the reception of information.

A primary process in learning is subsumption in which new material is related to relevant ideas in the existing cognitive structure on a non-verbatim basis (previous knowledge)

Meaningful learning results when new information is acquired by linking the new information in the learner's own cognitive structure

The Processes of Meaningful Learning

Derivative subsumptionCorrelative subsumption Superordinate learningCombinatorial learning

Derivative Subsumption

 This describes the situation in which the new information you learn is an example of a concept that you have already learned.PREVIOUS KNOWLEDGE : Let's suppose

you have acquired a basic concept such as "tree” – has green leaves, branches, fruits

You learn about a kind of tree that you have never seen before “persimmon tree” (an edible fruit that resembles a large tomato and has very sweet flesh) - that conforms to your previous understanding of “tree’’

Your new knowledge of persimmon tree is attached to the concept of tree, without substantially altering that concept in any way

Correlative Subsumption

This is more "valuable" learning than that of Derivative Subsumption, since it enriches the higher-level concept.

•Now, let's suppose that you encounter a new kind of tree that has red leaves,

rather than green

• In order to accommodate this new information, you have to alter or extend your concept of tree to include the possibility of

red leaves.

Superordinate Learning

In this case, you already knew a lot of examples of the concept, but you did not know the concept itself until it was taught to you.

This is Superordinate Learning (a thing that represents a superior order or category within a system of classification).

Imagine that you were well acquainted with maples, oaks, apple trees, etc., but you did not know, until you were taught, that these were all examples of deciduous trees. (of a tree or shrub) shedding its leaves annually.

Combinatorial Learning

The first three learning processes all involve new information that "attaches" to a hierarchy at a level that is either below or above previously acquired knowledge.

Combinatorial learning is different; it describes a process by which the new idea is derived from another idea that is neither higher nor lower in the hierarchy, but at the same level (in a different, but related, "branch").

You could think of this as learning by analogy.

For example, to teach someone about pollination in plants, you might relate it to previously acquired knowledge of how fish eggs are

fertilized.

General ideas of a subject (general statement): Must be presented first then progressively differentiated in terms of

detail and specificity.

Instructional materials : should attempt to integrate new material with

previously presented information Using comparisons and cross-referencing of new

and old ideas.

Principles of Ausubel's Meaningful Reception Learning

Theory within a classroom setting

Principles of Ausubel's Meaningful Reception Learning

Theory within a classroom setting

Advance organizers : Instructors could incorporate advance

organizers when teaching a new concept

Examples : Instructors could use a number of examples and

focus on both similarities and differences.

Principles of Ausubel's Meaningful Reception Learning

Theory within a classroom setting

Principles of Ausubel's Meaningful Reception Learning

Theory within a classroom setting

Instructional Implications

Ausubel's theory is not particularly in vogue today, perhaps because he seems to advocate a fairly passive role for the learner, who receives mainly verbal instruction that has been arranged so as to require a minimal amount of "struggle".

Nevertheless, there are some aspects of his theory that you might find interesting, can you name some?

Exercise:

Strengths of the model

Weaknesses of the model

Bruner’s Discovery Model

Ausubel’s Expository Teaching Model