Lesson 5

Lesson 5

The Cone of Experience

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

What are these bands of experience in Dale’s Cone of Experience? Let us expound each of them starting with the most direct. First we have direct purposeful experiences; these are first hand experiences which serve as the foundation of our learning.  We build up our storage of meaningful information and ideas through seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling. Second is contrived experiences; in here, we make use of a model or mock-ups of reality for practical reasons and so that we can make the real-life accessible to the students’ perceptions and understanding. Then we have dramatized experiences; these are reconstructed experiences of an event or happenings and even personal experiences by acting it personally.  Another is demonstrations; these are visualized explanation of an important fact, idea or processes by the use of photographs, drawings, films, displays, or guided motions. We also have study trips; these are excursions, educational trips, and visits conducted to observe an event that is unavailable within the classroom. Then we have exhibits; these are displays to be seen by spectators and they consist of models arranged meaningfully or photographs with models, charts and posters. Next is television and motion pictures; these can reconstruct the reality of the past so effectively that we are made to feel we are there. Still pictures, recordings, and 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 an actual event may often be likened to a televised broadcast minus its visual dimension. We have visual symbols; these are no longer realistic reproduction of physical things for these are highly abstract representations like charts, graphs, maps, and diagrams. Lastly we have verbal symbol; they are not like the objects or ideas for which they stand. They usually do not contain visual clues to their meaning.

The Three-tiered Model of Learning are the implications of the cone of experience in the teaching-learning process. It is also a model that illustrates that every area of knowledge can be presented and learned in three distinct steps.

Jerome Bruner identified three stages of cognitive representation.

1. Enactive, which is the representation of knowledge through actions.
2. Iconic, which is the visual summarization of images.
3. Symbolic representation, which is the use of words and other symbols to describe experiences.

The enactive stage appears first. This stage involves the encoding and storage of information. There is a direct manipulation of objects without any internal representation of the objects.

The iconic stage appears from one to six years old. This stage involves an internal representation of external objects visually in the form of a mental image or icon.

The symbolic stage, from seven years and up, is when information is stored in the form of a code or symbol such as language. Each symbol has a fixed relation to something it represents.