Lesson 5

The Cone of Experience

Let us tackle Edgar Dale’s cone of experience to get acquainted with various instructional media which form part of the system’s approach to instruction. If you remember the 8 M’s of instruction, one element is media. Another material. These 2 M’s (media, material) are actually the elements of this Cone of Experience  to be discuss in this Lesson.

Edgar Dale (1900-1985)

Serves on The Ohio State University faculty from 1929 until 1970. He was an internationally renowned pioneer in the utilization of audio-visual materials in instruction.

Professor Dale’s most famous concept was called “Cone of Experience”, a graphic depiction of the relationship between how information is presented in instruction and the outcomes for learners.

Abstraction

The Cone of Experience is a visual model, a pictorial device that presents bands of experience arranged according to degree of abstraction and not degree of difficulty.The farther you go from the bottom of the cone, the more abstract the experience become.

Dale (1969) asserts that:

The pattern of arrangement of the bands of experience is not difficulty but degree of abstraction – the amount of immediate sensory participation that is involved. A still photograph of a tree is not more difficult to understand than a dramatization of Hamlet. It is simply in itself a less concrete teaching material than the dramatization.

Dale further explains that: “the individual bands of the Cone of Experience stand for experiences that are fluid, extensive, and continually interact” (Dale 1969). It should not be taken literally in its simplified form. The different kinds of sensory aid often overlap and sometimes blend into one another. Motion pictures can be silent or they can combine sight and sound. Students may merely view a demonstration or they may view it then participate in it.

Dale (1969) categorically says:

No. We continually shuttle back and forth among various kinds of experiences. Everyday each of us acquires new concrete experiences- through walking on the street, gardening, dramatics, and endless other means. Such learning by doing, such pleasurable return to the concrete is natural throughout our live- and at every age level. On the other hand, both the older child and the young pupil make abstractions every day and may need help in doing this well. 

What are these bands of experience in Dale’s Cone of Experience? It is best to look back at the Cone itself. But let us expound each of them starting with the most direct.

Direct purposeful experiences – Those are first hand experiences which serve as the foundation of our learning. We build up our reservoir of meaningful information and ideas through seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling.

Contrived experiences – In here, we make use of representative models of mock ups of reality for practical reasons and so that we can make the real life accessible to the student’s perceptions and understanding.

Dramatized experiences- It is a visualized explanation of an important fact, idea or process by the use of photographs, drawings, films, displays, or guided motions.

Study trips- These are excursions, educational trips, and visits conducted to observe an event that is unavailable within the classroom.

Exhibits- These are displays to be seen by spectators they may consist of working models arranged meaningfully or photographs with models, charts, and posters.

Television and motion pictures- Television and motion pictures can reconstruct the reality of the past so effectively that we are made to feel we are there.

Still pictures, Recordings, Radio- These are visual and auditory devices which may be used by an individual or a group. Still pictures lack the sound and motion of a sound film. The radio broadcast of an actual event may often be likened to a televised broadcast minus its visual dimension.

Visual symbols- These are no longer realistic reproduction of physical things for these are highly abstract representations.

Ex. charts, graphs, maps, and diagrams.

Verbal symbols- They are not like the objects or ideas for which they stand. They usually do not contain visual clues to their meaning. Written words fall under this category. It may be a word for a concrete object (book), an idea (freedom of speech), a scientific principle (the principle of balance, a formula (e=mc2).

Application

Jerome S. Bruner- Harvard psychologist, he presents a three-tiered model of learning where he points out that every area of knowledge can be presented and learned in three distinct steps.

It is highly recommended that a learner proceeds from the ENACTIVE to the ICONIC and only after to the SYMBOLIC. The mind is often shocked into immediate abstraction at the highest level without the benefit of a gradual unfolding.