Lesson 5: THE CONE OF EXPERIENCE

Lesson 5: THE CONE OF EXPERIENCE

• The Cone 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 abstraction the experience becomes.

1. Direct Purposeful Movement

• First-hand experience which serves as a foundation of our learning. We build up our reservoir of meaningful information and ideas through seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling.

2. Contrived Experiences

• In here, we make use of a representative models or mock ups of reality for practical reasons.

3. Dramatized Experience

• By dramatization, we can participate in a reconstructed experience, even though the original event is far removed from us i time.

4. Demonstrations

• It is visualized explanation of an important fact, idea or process by the use of photographs, drawing, films, display or guided motion.
  

5. Study Trips

• These are the excursions, educational trips, and visit conducted to observe an event that is unavailable within the classroom

6. Exhibits

• These are displays to be seen by specters. They may consist of working models arranged meaningfully or photographs with models, charts and posters. Sometimes exhibits are "for your eyes only".

7. 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.

8. Still Pictures, Recordings, Radio

• These are the visual and auditory devices which may be used by an individual or a group.
  

9.Visual Symbols

• These are no longer realistic reproduction of physical things for  these are highly abstract representations.

10. Verbal Symbols

• They are not like an objects or ideas for which they stand. They usually do not contain visual clues their meaning.

Three - Tiered Model of Learning

• Harvard psychologist, Jerome S. Bruner, presents a three- tiered model of learning where he points out that every  are of knowledge can be presented and learned in three distinct steps. 

It is highly recommended that a learner proceeds from the ENACTIVE to the ICONIC and only after to the SYMBOLIC.

Three pitfalls that we should avoid with regard to the use of the Cone of Experience: 

• 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.

Lesson 4: SYSTEMATIC APPROACH TO TEACHING

Systematic Approach to Teaching

• It is a network elements or parts different from each other but each one is special in the sense that each performs a unique function for the life and effectiveness of the instructional system.
• The systems approach views the entire educational program as a system of closely interrelated parts. It is an orchestrated learning pattern with all parts harmoniously integrated into the whole: the school, the teacher, the students, the objectives, the media, the materials, and assessment tools and procedures. Such an approach integrates the older, more familiar methods and tools of instruction with the new ones such as the computer.

Purpose of a System Instructional Design

• To ensure orderly relationships and interaction of human, technical and environmental resources to fulfill the goals which have been established for instruction.
• The focus systematic instructional planning is the student.
• It tells about the systematic approach to teaching in which the focus in the teaching is the students.

Systematized Instruction

1. Define Objectives- instruction begins with the definition of instructional objectives that consider the students' needs, interests and readiness.

2. Choose appropriate methods- on the basis of these objectives the teacher selects the appropriate teaching methods to be used.

3. Choose appropriate experiences- based on the teaching method selected, the appropriate learning experiences, an appropriate material, equipment and facilities will also be selected.

4. Select materials, equipment and facilities- the use of learning materials, equipment, and facilities necessitates assigning the personnel to assist the teacher.

5. Assign personnel roles- defining the role of any personnel involved in the preparation, setting and returning of this learning resources would also help in the learning process.

6. Implement the instruction- with the instructional objectives in mind, the teacher implements planned instructions with the use of the selective teaching method, learning activities, and learning materials with the help of other personnel whose role has been defined by the teacher.

7. Evaluate outcomes- after instructions, teacher evaluates the outcome of instruction. From the evaluation results, teacher comes to know if the instructional objective was attained.

8. Refine the process- if the instructional objective was attained, teacher proceeds to the next lesson going through the same cycle once more. 

Examples of Learning Activities:

• Reading
• Writing
• Interviewing
• Reporting or doing presentation
• Discussing
• Thinking
• Reflecting
• Dramatizing
• Visualizing
• Creating judging
• Evaluating

Lesson 3: ROLES OF EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY IN LEARNING

Technology can play a traditional role, i.e., as delivery vehicles for instructional lessons or in a constructivist way as partners in the learning process.

• From the traditional Point Of View, technology serves as source and presenter 
• For comparing perspectives, beliefs and world view



 Technology as context to support learning-by-doing:

• For representing and stimulating meaningful real- world problems, situations and context
• For representing beliefs, perspectives, arguments, and stories of others.
• For defining a safe, controllable problem space for student thinking.



Technology as a social medium to support learning by conversing:

• For collaborating with others. 
• For discussing, arguing, and building consensus among members of a community 
• For supporting discourse among knowledge building communities. 





 Technology as intellectual partner (Jonassen 1996) to support learning by reflecting: 

• For helping learners to articulate and represent what they know. 
• For reflecting on what they have learned and how they came to know it. 
• For supporting learners internal negotiations and meaning making. 
• For constructing personal representations of meaning 
• For supporting mindful thinking.