Eko Sanjaya's Blog

      Dale’s Cone of Experience is a way to describe various learning experience. This was originally developed by Edgar Dale. The cone is based on the relationships of various educational experiences to real life. It shows the progression of experiences from the most concrete (by doing) to the most abstract (by reading). This emphasizes learning experiences appeal to the different senses and the different ways in which we learn. At the same content, but in different learning ways have different results. In reading, we do not have visual explanation, so we do not master what we are learning. But, when we have visual explanation even when we do the real activity, the knowledge will be easy to be mastered.

     For example, we want to learn about how manage our blog (creating, designing, posting, etc). When we read a book about how to manage the blog, we will have many confusing thing although it have complete explanation. But when we practice to manage the blog directly, we will have more understanding and master this case.

      Actually, in my opinion, it does not mean that concrete or real experiences are better than abstract ones, but it all depends on what learners need in learning.

In e-Learning, there are three learning theories. They are behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism.

Behaviorism believes that learning is based on observable changes in behavior.  In my opinion, it focuses on a new behavioral pattern being repeated until it becomes automatic. The learner is focused on a clear goal and can respond automatically to the cues of that goal. For example, learning can be supported by program that can give responses to the learners.  Learners are stimulated to do some activities in the program and then the program gives responses. There are behavior changes when there are interaction between learner and the program.

Cognitivsm believes that learning is internal process through cognition, for example thinking, processing data (information), and memorization. In this case I think that learners learn by manipulate data, how they receive data and process it through the cognition. In that process, information are received by the human senses. The simple example is learning through an exploration in the internet. By using this feature in the computer, learners can get many information. In getting information, there are cognitive process occur in the learners.

Constructivism believes that learning is construction of learner’s experience. In my opinion, learning can be constructed by learners’ own experience based on their activities. In e-Learning, they can create their own program for example. In creating program, they develop their own learning.

       In cooperative learning, student work together as a group to share each other their ideas. This creates new result and leaves the identity of each student. In this type of learning, each with students of different levels of ability use a variety of learning activities to improve their understanding of a subject. Each student has responsibility not only for learning what is taught but also for helping teammates learn.

       In collaborative learning, student work together as a group, but they stand in their own ideas. Students are asked to organize their joint efforts. This creates new result, but does not leave the identity of each student idea.