Co g nitive Le arning The o rie s and its

Implic atio n o n S c ie nc e Clas s ro o m

Te ac hing
Presenters:
Azlina Wati Bt. Aziz
Azura Bt. Razali
Lukman B. Che Hassan
Yuhana Anom Bt Md. Yunos
 David P. Ausubel was born in 1918

Grew up in Brooklyn, NY

Attended the University of Pennsylvania, taking

the pre-medical course and majoring in
Psychology

In 1973 he retired from academic life to devote full time to his

psychiatric practice

His principal interests in psychiatry have been general

psychopathology, ego development, drug addiction, and forensic
psychiatry

In 1976 he received the Thorndike Award from the American

Psychological Association for "Distinguished Psychological
Contributions to Education".
 Introduction

-Supported the theory that pupils form &

organise knowledge by themselves
-Emphasized the importance of verbal
learning / language-related learning which he
consider to be very effective for pupils of
the age 11 or 12 & above
-Pupils gradually learn to associate new
knowledge with existing concepts in
their mental structures
-To ensure meaningful teaching,
necessary to avoid rote memorising of
facts. Pupils need to manipulate ideas
actively
 Advance Organizer

-Presents an overview of the information to

be covered in detail during the exposition
that follows
-Can be classified : exposition or comparison
type
 Advance Organizer of the
Exposition Type

-While presenting new material

-Use beginning of lesson
-Presents several encompassing
generalisations where detailed
contents will be added later
 Advance Organizer of the
Comparison Type
-Useful when the knowledge to be presented
is new to pupils
-Compares new material with knowledge
already known by emphasising the
similarities between 2 types of material &
showing the information that is to be
learnt
-Ausubel’s teaching approach is deductive in
nature
 SPECIFIC

Step 4:The pupils study

specific examples

Step 3:The teacher presents

examples

Step 2:The teacher explains

important terms

Step 1:The teacher presents

general statement or
abstraction of lesson

ADVANCE ORGANIZER

GENERAL
Deductive Teaching Model: Advance Organizer as the basis
of the lesson
Ausubel’s Meaningful
Learning
 A concerned with how students
learn large amounts of
meaningful material from
verbal/textual presentations in
a learning activities
Meaningful
Reception Learning
Theory
Meaningful learning results
when new information is
acquired by linking the new
information in the learner's own
cognitive structure
Learning is based on the
representational,
superordinate and
combinatorial processes that
occur during the reception of
information.
A primary process in learning is
subsumption in which new
material is related to relevant
ideas in the existing cognitive
structure on a non-verbatim
basis (previous knowledge)
The pro c e s s e s o f me aning ful
le arning
Ausubel proposed four processes by
which meaningful learning can occur :

Derivative subsumption
Correlative subsumption
Superordinate learning
Combinatorial learning
 Derivative subsumption
• Describes the situation in which the new information pupils
learn is an instance or example of a concept that pupils have
already learned
Example (S tag e 1) :
PREVIOUS KNOWLEDGE : Le t's s uppo s e Ali have
ac quire d a bas ic c o nc e pt s uc h as "tre e ” – have g re e n
le ave , branc h, fruits
Ali le arn abo ut a kind o f tre e that he have ne ve r
s e e n be fo re “pe rs immo n tre e ” - c o nfo rms to his
pre vio us unde rs tanding o f “tre e ’’
His ne w kno wle dg e o f pe rs immo n tre e s is attac he d
to the c o nc e pt o f tre e , witho ut s ubs tantially alte ring
that c o nc e pt in any way
Correlative subsumption

more "valuable" learning than that of derivative

subsumption, since it enriches the higher-level concept

Example (S tag e 2) :
•No w, le t's s uppo s e Ali e nc o unte r a ne w kind o f
tre e that has re d le ave s , rathe r than g re e n

• Ac c o mmo date this ne w info rmatio n Ali have to

alte r o r e xte nd yo ur c o nc e pt o f “tre e ’’ to inc lude
the po s s ibility o f re d le ave s
 Superordinate learning
Example (S tag e 3) :
• Ali was we ll ac quainte d with maple s , o aks , apple
tre e s e tc ., but pupils s till did no t kno w, until the y
we re taug ht that the s e we re all e xample s o f
de c iduo us tre e s

In this case, you already knew a lot of examples of the

concept, but you did not know the concept itself until it
was taught to pupils.
 Combinatorial learning
Example (S tag e 3) :
•Ali le arn abo ut mo dific atio n o n the plants part, Ali
mig ht re late it to pre vio us ly ac quire d kno wle dg e o f
ho w papyrus tre e us e d to pro duc e pape r

• It describes a process by which the new idea is derived from

another idea that is comes from his previous knowledge (in a
different, but related, "branch")

• Students could think of this as learning by analogy

 Principles of Ausubel's
Meaningful Reception
Learning Theory within a
classroom setting

• General ideas of a subject (general statement):

– Must be presented first
– then progressively differentiated in terms of detail and
specificity.

• Instructional materials :
– should attempt to integrate new material with previously
presented information
– Using comparisons and cross-referencing of new and
old ideas.
 Principles of Ausubel's
Meaningful Reception
Learning Theory within a
classroom setting

• Advance organizers :
– Instructors should incorporate advance organizers
when teaching a new concept

• Examples :
– Instructors should use a number of examples and focus
on both similarities and differences.
The most important single factor
influencing learning is what the
learner already knows..