Lesson 17 Ausubel’s Subsumption Theory

 The Subsumption Learning Theory was developed in 1963 by the American psychologist David Ausubel. The theory focuses on how individuals acquire and learn large chunks of information through visual means or text materials (Pappas, 2014).

Lucas and Corpuz (2013) emphasized Ausubel’s belief of the use of advance organizers is anchored on the principle of subsumption. He thought that the primary way of learning was subsumption, which means a process by which new material is related to relevant ideas in the existing cognitive structures. Ausubel pointed out that what is learned is based on what is already known, that one’s own prior knowledge and biases limit and affect what is learned.

Meaningful learning can take place through four processes:

  1.     Derivative subsumption. This describes the situation in which the new information you learn is an example of a concept that you have already learned.

For example, let’s say you have acquired already the basic concept about “birds”. You know that birds have feathers that can fly, have a beak and lay eggs. Now you learn about a kind of bird that you have never seen before, for instance a hornbill, this new kind of bird you learned conform to your previous understanding of bird, without substantially altering the concept in any way.

  1.      Correlative subsumption. In this case, a new concept learned is an extension or modification of a previously learned information.

Now let’s say you’ve seen an ostrich. It doesn’t fly but it can run fast. In order to accommodate this new information, you have to change or expand your concept of bird. You now include your concept of an ostrich to your previous concept of what bird is. In a sense, you might say that this is more valuable than that of the derivative subsumption , since it enriches the higher concept.

 

  1.      Superordinate subsumption. A state where what was learned before are specific examples of a new concept.

An example of this would be, at young age you already know about snakes, turtle, crocodile and lizards but you never know until you were taught in school that these animals are example of reptiles. In this case, example of the concept is already known before the concept itself was learned.

 

  1.      Combinatorial subsumption. This is when a newly acquired knowledge combines with prior knowledge to enrich the understanding of both concept. Combinatorial learning is different from the first three learning processes, here the new learning is of equal heirarchy to the previous knowledge. It is somewhat like an analogy.

For example, to teach someone about how plants breathe you might relate it to the previously acquired knowledge of human respiration. Here both respiration in plant and humans will be enriched.

 

Advance Organizers

            The advance organizer is a major instructional tool proposed by Ausubel. The advance organizers give two main benefits: (1) you will find it easier to connect new information what you already know about the topic, and (2) you can readily see how the concept in a certain topic are related to each other.

            As you go about learning a topic and go through the four learning processes, the advance organizers help you link the new learning to your existing scheme. As such advance organizers facilitate learning by helping you organize and strengthen your cognitive structure.

            Ausubel stressed that advance organizers are not the same with overviews and summaries which simply emphasize key ideas and are presented at the same level of abstraction and generality as the rest of the material. Organizers act as a subsuming bridge between new learning material and existing related ideas.


Types of Organizers

  1.      Expository – describes the new content. This can be done by writing the new topic or information and goals on the board.
  2.      Narrative – presents the new information in the form of a story to students. At the beginning of the class, the teacher might tell an interesting story that relates to important concepts in the lesson
  3.      Skimming – is done by looking over the new material for basic overview. A teacher may ask students to skim over a reading, focusing on highlighted information, such as captions or chapter headings. That makes them familiar with the material before they read it more thoroughly.
  4.      Graphic organizers – visuals to set up or outline the new information. This may include pictographs, descriptive patterns, concept patterns and concept maps.

       


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