1. Ausubel’s Meaningful
Verbal Learning/
Subsumption Theory

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

4. Abstract/ Generalization:
The main theme of Ausubel’s Theory is that
knowledge is hierarchically organized; the new
information is meaningful to the extent that it
can be related (attached, anchored) to what is
already known. It is about how individuals learn
large amount of meaningful verbal material from
verbal/ textual presentation in a school setting.
He proposed the use of advance organizer as a
tool for learning.

6. 1. The most important factor
influencing learning id the
quantity, clarity and organization
of the learner’s present
knowledge. This comprises his/her
cognitive structure.

7. 2. 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.

10. Example:
Let’s say you have acquired a basic concept such
as” bird”. You know that a bird has feathers, a
beak, lays egg. Now you learn about a kind if bird
that you have never seen before., let’s say a blue
jay, that conforms to your previous understanding
of bird, without substantially altering that concept
in any way.

12. Example:
Lets say you see a new kind of bird that has a really
big body and long 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 big and having a long
legs. You know include the concept of an ostrich to
your previous concept of what a bird is.

18. Types of Organizers

19. Expository
•Describe the
new content.

23. References:
 http://www.slideshare.net/cutie_maine_026/ausubels
-meaningful-verbal-learning
 http://www.slideshare.net/angelmaelongakit/ausubels
-meaningful-verbal-learning