TTL in the Elementary Grades 1
Lesson 3
The Cone of Experience
"The Cone is a visual analogy, and like all full analogies, it does not bear an exact and
detailed relationship to the complex elements it represents."
- Edgar Dale
Amy Edgar Dale's Cone of Experience
Learning
Draw the implications of the Cone of
Outcome Experience to the teaching-learning process
What is the Cone of Experience
Focus What are the sensory aids in the Cone of
Question Experience?
What are its implications to teaching
Introduction
After a discussion on the systems' approach to instruction, 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
is material. These 2 M's (media, material) are actually the elements of this Cone
of Experience to be discussed in this Lesson.
Activity
A. Study the Cone of Experience given below. Analyze how the elements
are arranged from the bottom upward or from top down.
Figure 3.
The Cone of Experience
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Analysis
Discussion Questions:
1. What are the learning aids found in the Cone of Experience?
2. How are the experiences of reality arranged in the Cone of Experience?
3. Which way is closest to the real world?
4. Which way is farthest from the real world, in this sense most abstract?
5. Is the basis of the arrangement of experiences difficulty of experience or
degree of abstraction (the amount of immediate sensory participation
involved)?
6. Do the bands of experience (e.g. direct experiences, contrived
experience, etc.) follow a rigid, inflexible pattern? Or is it more correct
to think that the bands experience in the Cone overlap and blend into
one another?
7. Does the Cone of Experience device mean that all teaching and learning
must move systematically from base to pinnacle?
8. Is one kind of sensory experience more useful educationally than
another?
9. Can we overemphasize the amount of direct experience that is required
to learn a new concept?
10. Are the upper levels of the Cone for the older student and the lower ones
for the child?
11. The base of the Cone of Experience (direct purposeful experiences) is
much wider than its apex (verbal symbol). Does this have any
educational significance? Any meaning that you can derive?
12. What is the Cone of Experience?
TTL in the Elementary Grades 3
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 becomes.
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 rete teaching material
than the dramatization (Dale, 1969).
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 over lap 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.
Does the Cone of Experience mean that all teaching and learning must
move systematically from base to pinnacle, from direct purposeful experiences
to verbal symbols? Dale (1969) categorically says:
... No. We continually shuttle back and forth among various kinds of
experiences. Every day 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 lives - 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.
In our teaching, then, we do not always begin with direct experience at
the base of the Cone. Rather, we begin with the kind of experience that is most
appropriate to the needs and abilities of particular learner in a particular
learning situation. Then, of course, we vary this experience with many other
types of learning activities (Dale. 1969).
One kind of sensory experience is not necessarily more educationally
useful than another. Sensory experiences are mixed and interrelated. When
students listen to you as you give your lecturette, they do not just have an
TTL in the Elementary Grades 4
auditory experience. They also have visual experience in the sense that they are
reading your facial expressions and bodily gestures.
We face some risk when we overemphasize the amount of direct
experience to learn a concept. Too much reliance on concrete experience may
actually obstruct the process of meaningful generalization. The best will be
striking a balance between concrete and abstract, direct participation and
symbolic expression for the learning that will continue throughout life.
It is true that the older a person is, the more abstract his concepts are
likely to be. This can be attributed to physical maturation, more vivid
experiences and sometimes greater motivation for learning. But an older
student does not live purely in his world of abstract ideas just as a child does
not live only in the world of sensory experience. Both old and young shuttle in
a world of the concrete and the abstract.
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 on each of them starting
with the most direct.
Direct purposeful experiences. These 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. In the context of the teaching-learning process, it is learning by
doing. If I want my student to learn how to focus a compound light microscope,
I will let him focus one, of course, after I showed him how.
Contrived experiences - In here, we make use of a representative models
or mock ups of reality for practical reasons and so that we can make the real-
life accessible to the students’ perceptions and understanding. For instance a
mock-up of Apollo, the capsule for the exploration of the moon, enabled the
North American Aviation Co to study the problem of lunar flight.
Remember how you were taught to tell time? Your teacher may have
used a mock up, a clock, whose hands you could turn to set the time you were
instructed to set. Simulations such as playing "sari-sari" store to teach
subtracting centavos from pesos is another example of contrived experience.
Conducting election of class and school officers by simulating how local and
national elections are conducted is one more example of contrived experience.
Dramatized experiences - By dramatization, we can participate in a
reconstructed experience, even though the original event is far removed from
TTL in the Elementary Grades 5
us in time. We relive the outbreak of the Philippine revolution by acting out the
role of characters in a drama.
Demonstrations - It is a visualized explanation of an important fact, idea
or process by the use of photographs, drawings, films, displays, or guided
motions. It is showing how things are done. A teacher in Physical Education
shows the class how to dance tango.
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. Sometimes exhibits are "for your eyes only. There are some
exhibits, however, that include sensory experiences where spectators are
allowed to touch or manipulate models displayed.
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. The unique value of the messages communicated by film and television
lies in their feeling of realism, their emphasis on persons and personality, their
organized presentation, and their ability to select, dramatize, highlight, and
clarify.
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. Examples are 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)
What are the implications of the Cone of Experience in the teaching-
learning process?
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1. We do not use only one medium of communication in isolation
Rather we use many instructional materials to help the learner
conceptualize his/her experience.
2. We avoid teaching directly at the symbolic level of thought without
adequate foundation of the concrete. Learners' concepts will lack
deep roots in direct experience. Dale cautions us when he said:
"These rootless experiences will not have the generative power to
produce additional concepts and will not enable the learner to deal
with the new situations that he faces" (Dale, 1969)
3. When teaching, we don't get stuck in the concrete. Let us strive to
bring our students to the symbolic or abstract level to develop their
higher order thinking skills.
Application
A. Harvard psychologist, Jerome S. Bruner, 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. Study his model
of learning given below:
Figure 4. Bruner’s Three-Tiered Model of Learning
Source: Philip T. Torres. Learning Excellence. (1994), Mandaluyong, MM:
Training Systems Associates, Inc.
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.
TTL in the Elementary Grades 7
Question: Are the implications of the Cone of Experience in the teaching-
learning process the same things that are recommended by
Bruner's three-tiered model of learning?
B. Which learning aids in Edgar Dale's Cone of Experience correspond
to each tier or level in Bruner's model? Write your answers on the
spaces provided.
SYMBOLIC
ICONIC
ENACTIVE
C. A Math professor asked a Math student specializing in Math why
(a+b)2 = a+2ab+b2
She proceeded with:
Is this a concrete explanation of the equation? If not, what is a concrete
representation of the equation?
D. Small Group Work
If you teach a lesson on the meaning of 1/2, 1/3, and 1/4, how will you
proceed if you follow the pattern in Dale's Cone of Experience beginning with
the concrete moving toward the abstract.
TTL in the Elementary Grades 8
Summing Up
Edgar Dale's Cone of Experience is a visual representation of learning
resources arranged according to degree of abstractness. The farther you move
away from the base of the cone, the more abstract the learning resource
becomes. Arranged from the least to the most abstract the learning resources
presented in the Cone of Experience are:
direct purposeful experiences
contrived experiences
dramatized experiences
demonstrations
study trips
exhibits
educational television
motion pictures
recordings, radio, still pictures
visual symbols
verbal symbols
The lines that separate the learning experience should not be taken to
mean that the learning experiences are strictly delineated. The Cone of
Experience should not be taken literally. Come to think of it. Even from the base
of the Cone, which is direct purposeful experiences, we already use words -
verbal symbols - which are the most abstract. In fact, we use words which are
verbal symbols, the pinnacle of the cone, across the cone from top to bottom.
Or many times our verbal symbols are accompanied by visual symbols, still
pictures.
Three pitfalls that we, teachers, should avoid with regard to the use of
the Cone of Experience are:
using one medium in isolation.
moving to the abstract without an adequate foundation of concrete
experience.
getting stuck in the concrete without moving to the abstract
hampering the development of our students' higher thinking skills.
Making the Connection
1. After a lesson on the Cone of Experience, can you now explain why our
teachers in Literature discourage us from reading only comes or
illustrated comic version of novels which can be read in pocketbooks?
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2. How does the dictum in philosophy "there is nothing in the mind that
was not first in some way through the senses relate to what you learned
from the Cone of Experience?
3. 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?
4. When Dale formulated the Cone of Experience, computers were not yet
a part educational or home settings so they are not part of the original
Cone. The computer technology actively engages the learner, who uses
seeing, hearing and physical activity at the keyboard as well as range of
mental skills. Where will the computer be on the Cone?
Personal Postscript
The Cone of Experience:
A Reminder
If we want our students to remember and master what was taught, we
cannot ignore what the Cone of Experience reminds us: to make use of a
combination of as many learning resources as we can and to proceed to the
abstract only after we have presented the concrete. Do we have to end in the
abstract? Or should the abstract lead us again to the concrete and the concrete
to the abstract again? So learning is from the concrete to the abstract, from the
abstract to the concrete and from the concrete to the abstract again? It becomes
a cycle.
There was once a teacher for whom students wrote this comment every
time the students were asked to evaluate their teacher at the end of the semester
"he never used the chalkboard".