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 represents.”
-Edgar Dale
 What is the Cone of Experience?
 What are the sensory aids in the Cone of Experience?
 What are its implication in teaching?
The Cone of Experience
 First introduced in Dale’s 1946 book, Audio-Visual
Methods in Teaching.
 Designed to “show the progression of learning experiences”
from the concrete to the abstract.

Direct and Purposeful Experience

 Direct, First-hand experience
 Have a direct participation in the outcome
 Use of all our senses
Contrived Experiences
 Models and mock-ups
 “editing of reality”
 Necessary when real experience are too complicated.
Dramatized Experience
 Reconstructed experiences
 Can be used to simplify an event or idea to its most important parts
 Divided into two categories
o Acting – actual participation
o (more concrete)
o Observing – watching a dramatization take place (more abstract)
Demonstration
 Visualized explanation of an important fact, idea or process.
 Shows how certain things are done.
Field Trips
 Watch people do things in real situations
 Observe an event that is unavailable in the classroom
Exhibits
 Something seen by a spectator
 Two types:
 Ready made
 Home-made
Educational Television and Motion Pictures
 Television
o Bring immediate interaction with events from around the world
o Edit an event to create clearer understanding than if experienced actual
event first hand.
 Motion Picture
o Can omit unnecessary unimportant material.
o Used to slow down a fast process
o Viewing, seeing and hearing experience.
o Can re-create events with simplistic drama that even slower students can
grasp.
 Recordings, Radio and Still Pictures
o Can often be understood by those who cannot read.
o Helpful to students who cannot deal with the motion or pace of a real event
or television.
 Visual Symbols
o No longer involves reproducing real situations
o Chalkboard and overhead projectors are the most widely used media.
o Help students see an idea, event or process
 Verbal Symbol
o Two Types:
 Written words- more abstract
 Spoken words- less abstract
The Cone of Experience 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 abstract the experience becomes.
People always think differently. Some may think in concrete terms and some in abstract
terms. Concrete thinking refers to the thinking on the surface. Whereas, abstract thinking
is related to thinking in depth.
Different kind of sensory aid often overlap and sometime blend into one another.
One kind of sensory experience is not necessarily more educationally useful than another.
Sensory experiences are mixed and interrelated
Too much reliance on concrete experience may actually obstruct the process of meaningful
generalization.
The best will be striking a balance between concrete and abstract, direct participation and
symbolic expression for the learning that will continue throughout the life.
Do not use only one medium of communication in isolation. Rather, use many instructional
materials to help the learner conceptualize his/her experience
Avoid teaching directly at the symbolic level of thought without adequate foundation of
the concrete. Learners’ concept will lack deep roots in direct experience.
When teaching, don’t get stuck in the concrete. Strive to bring our students to the symbolic
or abstract level to develop their higher order thinking skills.
“These rootless experience will not have the generative power to produce additional
concepts and will not enable the learner to deal with new situations that he/she faces” (Dale
1969)