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PICTURE START

“The Cone is a visual analogy, and like all analogies, it does not bear an exact and detailed relationship to complex elements it represents.” - Edgar Dale -

Given 11 randomized bands of the Cone of Experience, arrange the jumbled bands in order inside a cone according to the degree of abstraction.

Direct Purposeful Experiences Demonstrations Dramatized Experiences Study Trips Contrived Experiences Educational Television Visual Symbols Exhibits Verbal Symbols Recordings: Radio, Still Pictures Motion Pictures

EDGAR DALE’S: THE CONE OF EXPERIENCE Verbal Symbols Visual Symbols Recordings, Radio, Still Pictures Motion Pictures Educational Television Exhibits Study Trips Demonstrations Dramatized Experiences Contrived Experiences Direct Purposeful Experiences EDGAR DALE’S: THE CONE OF EXPERIENCE

Direct Purposeful Experiences First hand experience that serve as the foundation of learning. Learning by doing. We build up our reservoir of meaningful information and ideas through seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling.

Contrived Experiences We make use of a representative models or mock ups of reality for practical reasons. So that we can make the reality accessible to the students’ perceptions and understanding. E.g. clock for elementary students.

Dramatized Experiences By dramatization, we can participate in a reconstructed experience even though the original event is far removed from us in time.

Demonstrations A visualized explanation of an important fact, idea, or process by the use of photographs, drawings, films, displays, or guided motion. Showing how things are done.

Study Trips Excursions or visits conducted to observe an event that is unavailable inside the classroom.

Exhibits Displays to be seen by spectators.

Television & Motion Pictures Reconstruct reality of the past so effectively.

Recordings, Radio, Still Pictures These are visual and auditory devices may be used by individual or group.

Visual Symbols No longer realistic reproduction of physical things for these are highly abstract representation. Charts, graphs, maps, diagram We build up our reservoir of meaningful information and ideas through seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling.

Verbal Symbols These are not like object or ideas for which they stand. They usually do not contain a visual clues to their meaning.

What are the implications of the cone of experience in the teaching learning process?

Do not use only one medium of communication. Do not proceed with the abstract without adequate foundation of the concrete.

Don’t get stuck with the concrete Don’t get stuck with the concrete. Let us strive to bring our students to the symbolic abstract level to develop their higher thinking skills.

Small Group Work

If you teach a lesson on the meaning of ½, 1/3, and ¼ how will you proceed if you follow the pattern in Dale’s Cone of Experience beginning with the concrete moving toward the abstract.

Making Connection

How does the dictum in philosophy “there is nothing in mind that was not first in the senses” relate what you learned from the cone of experience?

Alfred North Whitehead said: “In the Garden of Eden, Adam saw the animals before he named them. In the traditional system, children name the animals before they see them.” How would you relate this remark to the Cone of Experience?