Prepared by: Mitschek, Ariane B.BSE-ENG2A02/23/16

Ausubel’s Meaningful Verbal

Learning / Subsumption Theory

Ausubel’s Subsumption Theory

Four Processes for Meaningful Learning

Meaningful Reception of Information Advance Organizers

Learner’s Cognitive Structure

Correlative Subsumption

Use of Advance Graphic Organizer

ExpositoryDerivative Subsumption

Narrative

Subsumption Graphic OrganizersCombinatorial Learning

Superordinate Learning Skimming

Meaningful Reception of Information

According to David Ausubel, knowledge is hierarchically organized, and new information can be attached/anchored to what is already known. Once a learner successfully attached this new information to their existing knowledge, this is where Meaningful Reception of Information takes place.

Learner’s Cognitive Structure

Learner’s Cognitive Structure is the most important factor influencing learning. It pertains to the learner’s present knowledge including facts, concepts, propositions, theories and raw perceptual data that the learner has available at any point in time.

Use of Advance Graphic Organizer

Since the learner’s cognitive structure is the most important factor influencing the learning, this should be strengthened. Ausubel proposed the use of advance organizers to allow students to already have a bird’s eye view or to see the “big picture” of the topic to be learned.

Whenever the learner’s cognitive structure is successfully strengthened, acquisition and retention of new information is facilitated. This process is called “subsumption”, in which new material is related to relevant ideas in the existing cognitive structure.

Subsumption

Meaningful Learning can take place through four processes:

Four Processes for Meaningful Learning

This describes the situation in which the new information you learn is an example of a concept you already learned.

EXAMPLE: Your concept of bird is that, it has feathers, beak, and lay eggs. Now you’ve seen a blue jay, new kind of bird that conforms to your concept of bird. Your new knowledge about blue jay is attached to your concept of bird without altering the concept.

Derivative Subsumption

This describes the accommodation of new information by changing or expanding the concept.

EXAMPLE: You’ve seen a new kind of bird, which is the ostrich. The ostrich can’t fly, has big body and long strong legs. To accommodate this new information, you need to include the concept of an ostrich to your previous concept of bird. You expand the concept by including the possibility of bird being big and having long strong legs.

Correlative Subsumption

Superordinate learning is when you knew a lot of examples of the concept, but did not know the concept itself until it was taught to you.

EXAMPLE: You knew about banana, mango, dalandan, guava etc., but you did not know, until you were taught, that these were all examples of fruits.

Superordinate Learning

It describes a process by which the new idea is derived from another idea that is neither higher or lower in the hierarchy, but at the same level ( in a different, but related, “branch”).

EXAMPLE: To teach someone about how plants “breathe” you might relate it to their previously acquired knowledge of human respiratory where man inhales oxygen and exhales carbon dioxide. This is because they are related to each other as they are both labeled as “process of breathing”.

Combinatorial Learning

The advance organizer is a major instructional tool proposed by Ausubel.

Two Benefits of Advance Organizers:• You will find it easier to connect new

information with what you already know about the topic.

• You can readily see how the concepts in a certain topic are related to each other.

Advance Organizers

Types of Advance Organizers

• Expository – describes the new content.• Narrative – presents the new information in form

of a story to students.• Skimming – is done by looking over the new

material to gain a basic overview.• Graphic organizer – visual to set up or outline the

new information. This may include pictographs, descriptive patterns, concept patterns, concept maps.

Advance Organizers