
Many educational psychology theories often
criticize the expository or presentational
manner of teaching. They say that teachers
assume such a major role in learning as
providers of information, while students
remain passive receivers of information.


David Ausubel, instead of criticizing this
manner of teaching, proposed ways of
improving it. He suggested the use of
advance organizers. His ideas are contained
in his theory of Meaningful Verbal Learning.

Meaningful Reception
of Information
Learner’s Cognitive
Structure
Use of Advance
Graphic Organizer
Subsumption
Four Process for
Meaningful Learning
Advance Organizers
Derivative
Subsumption
Expository
Correlative
Subsumption
Narrative
Super ordinate
Learning
Skimming
Combinatorial
Learning
Graphic Organizers





The figure above is an advance organizer.
Study it. Read the words found in each box.
Examine how the lines connect the boxes.
Describe the advance organizer, specifically
on how the words are related to each other.

1.
The most important factor influencing
learning is the quantity, clarity and
organization of the learner’s present
knowledge.
This present knowledge consists of facts,
concepts, propositions, theories and raw
perceptual data that learner has available to
him/her at any point in time this comprises
his/her cognitive structure.

2. Meaningful learning takes place when an idea to
be learned is related in some sensible way to
ideas that the learner already possesses .
Ausubel believed that before new material can
be presented effectively, the student’s cognitive
structure should be strengthened.
When this is done, acquisition and retention of
new information is facilitated.

Ausubel believed that before new material can
be presented effectively, the student’s cognitive
structure should be strengthened.
The way to strengthen the student’s cognitive
structure is by using advance organizers that
allow students to already have a bird’s eye view
or to see the “big picture” of the topic to be
learned even before going to the details.


Ausubel’s belief of the use of advance
organizers is anchored on the principle of
subsumption. He thought that the primary
way of learning was subsumption: a process
by which new material is related to relevant
ideas in the existing cognitive structure.
Likewise, Asusubel pointed out, that what is
learned is based on what is already known.


This signifies that one’s own prior knowledge
and biases limit and affect what is learned.
Also, retention of new knowledge is greater
because it is based on prior concrete
concepts.

Meaningful learning can take place through
four process:

Examine this example:
 Now let’s say you see a new kind of bird that
has really big body and long strong legs. It
doesn’t fly but it can run fast. In order to
accommodate this new information, you
have to change or expand your concept of
bird to include the possibility of being and
having long legs. You now include your
concept of an Ostrich to your previous
concept of what bird is.

You have learned about this new kind of bird
through the process of correlative
subsumption. In a sense, you might say this is
more “valuable” learning than that of
derivative subsumption, since is enriches the
higher-level concept.


Imagine that a child was well acquainted with
banana, mango, dalandan, guava etc., but
the child did not know, until she was taught,
that these ware all examples of fruits. In this
case, the child already knew a lot of examples
of the concept, did not know the concept
itself until it was taught to her. This is super
ordinate learning.


This is when newly acquired knowledge
combines with prior knowledge to enrich the
understanding of both concepts. The first
three learning process all included new
information that relates to 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 or lower in
the hierarchy, but at the same level ( in a
different, but related, “branch”).
It is a lot like as learning by analogy. For
example, to teach someone about how plants
“breathe” you might relate it to previously
acquired knowledge of human respiratory where
man inhales oxygen and exhales carbon dioxide.


The advance organizer is a major
instructional tool proposed by ausubel. The
advance organizer, gives you two benefits:
(1.) You will find it easier to connect new
information with what you already know
about the topic.
(2.) you can readily see how the concepts in a
certain topic are related to each other.


As you go about learning about the topic and
go through the four learning process, the
advance organizer helps you link the new
learning to your existing scheme. As such,
advance organizers facilitate learning by
helping you organize and strengthen your
cognitive structure.


Ausubel stressed that advance organizers are
not the same with overviews and summaries
which simply emphasize key ideas presented
at the same level of abstraction and
generality as the rest of the material.
Organizers act as a subsuming bridge
between new learning material and existing
related ideas.




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Expository – describes the new content.
Narrative – presents the new information in
form of a story to students.
Skimming – is done by looking over the new
material to gain a basic overview.
Graphic organizer – visual to set up or outline
the new information. This may include
pictographs, descriptive patterns, concept
patterns, concept maps.

1. The most general ideas of the subject should
be presented first and then progressively
differentiated in terms of detail and
specificity. He called this progressive
differentiation. According to Ausubel, the
purpose of progressive differentiation is to
increase the stability and clarity of anchoring
ideas.


The basic idea here is that, if you’re teaching
three related topics A, B and C, rather than
teaching all topic A, then B, etc., you would
take a spiral approach. That is, in your first
pass through the material, you would teach
the “big” ideas (i.e., those highest in the
hierarchy ) in all three topics, then on
successive passes you would begin to
elaborate the details.

2. Instructional materials should attempt to
integrate new material with previously
presented information through comparisons
and cross-referencing of new and old ideas.