CONE DALE’S EXPERIENCE

What is Dale’s Cone of Experience?

The Cone was originally developed by Edgar Dale in 1946 and was intended as a way to describe various learning experiences. Essentially, the Cone shows the progression of experiences from the most concrete (at the bottom of the cone) to the most abstract (at the top of the cone). 

Look at the picture below.

This picture shows people or ,in this case, student learning stages and divides them into several cattegories. To be abe to understand more about this Cone Dale’s Experience, let’s classify the level of students into three categories:Basic, intermediate, and advanced.

1.   Basic level

In this level, the way of students’ learning are only focus on reading and listening so based on this cone experience, their capability of remembering the lesson is only 10-20%. And also, in this level, students are only able to define, to describe, to list, and to explain what they got. Students in this level are categorized as passive learning sudents.

2.   Intermediate level

In this stage, the way of students’ learning have improved a little bit. Now they learn by seeing and hearing and based on this cone experience, their capability of remembering the lesson increase to 30-50%. In thisstage, the students have been able to demonstrate, to apply, and to practice their knowledge. Students in this level are also passive learning students.

3.   Advanced level

This is the last level of students’ learning. In this final level, the students have been able to analize, to define, to create, and to evaluate what they got. They can remember better than those two previous level because they learn by saying, writing, and doing which increase their capability of remembering by 70-90%. Students in this level can be categorized as active learning students.

How Can Instructors Use the Cone of Experience?

According to Dale’s research, the least effective method at the top, involves learning from information presented through verbal symbols, i.e., listening to spoken words.  The most effective methods at the bottom, involves direct, purposeful learning experiences, such as hands-on or field experience.  Direct purposeful experiences represents reality or the closet things to real, everyday life. The cone charts the average retention rate for various methods of teaching.  The further you progress down the cone, the greater the learning and the more information is likely to be retained. It also suggests that when choosing an instructional method it is important to remember that involving students in the process strengthens knowledge retention.

It reveals that “action-learning” techniques result in up to 90% retention.  People learn best when they use perceptual learning styles. Perceptual learning styles are sensory based.  The more sensory channels possible in interacting with a resource, the better chance that many students can learn from it.  According to Dale, instructors should design instructional activities that build upon more real-life experiences.

Dales’ cone of experience is a tool to help instructors make decisions about resources and activities.  The instructor can ask the following:

•    Where will the student’s experience with this instructional resource fit on the cone?  How far is it removed from real-life?

•    What kind of learning experience do you want to provide in the classroom?

•    How does this instructional resource augment the information supplied by the textbook?

•    What and how many senses can students use to learn this instructional material?

•    Does the instructional material enhance learning?

How can Dale’s Cone be used to enhance SL learning?

What should be taken from reviewing Dale’s Cone of Experience is that experiences at ALL of the levels described should be used in the second language classroom. Dale’s Cone emphasizes learning experiences that appeal to the different senses and the different ways in which students learn. Direct parallels can be drawn between the different levels of experience depicted in the Cone.

“Teaching is the process by which the teacher brings the learner and the subject together. Therefore, there are three focal points in teaching- the teacher, the learner and the subject. The entire process of teaching can be reduced to something simple enough to be both understandable and useful. This reduction is provided in the form of teaching model. This model consists of the teacher, the student, the subject, teacher preparation and the teaching process.” Annoh 2003

Hughes argues that knowledge of how children learn is the first essential for success in teaching. The teacher helps children in school to develop intellect, character, skill, taste and sociability. We teach them knowledge, habits, ideals, skills, attitudes, manners. By this statement, teachers help them to adjust themselves to their environments- spiritual, social and material. This view of education as adjustment puts us, as teachers, in our proper position. We are subsidiary to the process of learning, for in this process there are two factors- a child on the one hand and his world on the other. The teacher’s function is to bring the two into contact, to help to put them en rapport.

William Arthur Ward said; “the mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.”

For further reading, you can visit the link below or you can download the Pdf file here

http://educapsycho.wordpress.com/2013/03/12/the-role-of-art/

If you find that you are still confused about this theory, don't worry. I also provide some videos about cone dale's experience. Check them out.

1. The cone of experience by monica alejandro.