Lesson 5: Cone of Experience

The Cone of Experience 

“The cone is a visual analogy and like all analogies, it does not bear an exact and detailed relationship to the complex elements it present.” - Edgar Dale

The Cone of Experience 

• is a visual model, a pictorial device that presents bans 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. 

Direct Purposeful Experiences 

• These are the first hand experiences which serves as the foundation of our learning.

Contrived Experiences

• In here, we make use of representative models or mock ups of reality for practical reasons and so that we can make the real life accessible to the students’ perception and understanding.

Dramatized Experiences 

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

Demonstrations

• It is a visualized explanation of an important fact, ideas or process by the use of photographs, drawings, films, displays or guided motions. \

Study Trips 

• These are excursions and visits conducted to observe an event that is unavailable within the classroom. 

Exhibits

• These are displays to be seen by spectators. They may consist of working models arranged meaningfully or photographs with models, charts and posters. 

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. 

Still Pictures, Recordings, Radio 

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

Visual Symbols 

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

Verbal Symbols 

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