David Ausubel

DAVID AUSUBEL AND THE ADVANCE ORGANISER

Definitions
1. A "statement of inclusive concepts to introduce and sum up material that follows" (Woolfolk, 2001).
2. Cognitive instructional strategy used to promote the learning and retention of new information (Ausubel, 1960).
3. It is a method of bridging and linking old information with something new.


Advanced organizers are a concept developed and systematically studied by David Ausubel in 1960. He was very influenced by the teachings of Jean Piaget (Geier, 1999). Ausubel has worked consistently to prove that advance organizers facilitate learning and much of his research has influenced others since the 1960s. However, throughout the history of using advance organizers, it is still undecided whether or not advance organizers fully promote learning or if other processes are more beneficial, but much of the research promotes the ability of advance organizers to be useful in improving levels of understanding and recall (Mayer, 2003).
Since the advent of advance organizers, research has been able to prove that these work best when there is no prior knowledge involved, because an advance organizer becomes the students prior knowledge before learning the new material. If prior knowledge is available, advance organizers do not work as well for these students (Mayer, 2003).
Ausubel's advance organizer can best be classified as a deductive method. Deductive methods or reasoning provide the rule to follow then the example leading to the correct answer or learning (Mayer, 2003). This is opposite from inductive methods or reasoning that provides the example to follow then the rule.
Advance organizers are also highly useful in the process of transferring knowledge. Because of the deductive reasoning, students are able to use the rule then the example for learning to occur. Mayer writes in his text, "...the effects of advance organizers should be most visible for tests that involve creative problem solving or transfer to new situations, because the advance organizer allows the learner to organize the material into a familiar structure" (Mayer, 2003).

Examples and Types of advance organizers
1. Advanced Organizers
2. Expository - describe the new content.
3. Narrative - presents the new information in the form of a story to students.
4. Skimming - used to look over the new material and gain a basic overview.
5. Graphic organizer - visuals to set up or outline the new information.
6. Concept mapping
Ausubel's definition is that advanced organizers should not contain "to be learned content" and the information being presented should be at a higher "higher level of abstraction, generality, and inclusiveness" than the information to be learned (Ausubel,1963).

http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/Advance_organizers


In order to enhance meaningful learning Ausubel believed that it was important to have students preview information to be learned. Teachers could do this by providing a brief introduction about the way that information that is going to be presented is structured. An example of this might be opening a lesson with a statement that provides an overview of what will be taught. In presenting outlines of information, teachers can help students see the big picture to be learned. http://vanguard.phys.udiaho.edu/mod/models/ausubel/index.html
This approach encourages students to build upon prior knowledge and mentally organize their thoughts before being introduced to the details of new concepts.
By making new material more familiar and meaningful to students, it should be easier to retrieve. (Gagne, 1988)
http://chd.gmu.edu/immersion/knowledgebase/strategies/cognitivism/AdvancedOrganizers.htm