The Classification and Essence of Learning
Ausubel divides learning into mechanical learning and meaningful learning, in which the conditions for meaningful learning are: the learning materials are of potential significance to students; Students have the knowledge to absorb new learning materials in their minds; Students have the intention to study meaningfully. Ausubel advocates receptive learning, which he believes must be carried out according to the standards and conditions of "meaningful learning", and the purpose of receptive learning is to establish the corresponding cognitive structure. The so-called "meaningful learning" is defined as "the essence of meaningful learning process, that is, the new knowledge represented by symbols establishes a non-artificial and substantive connection with the existing appropriate concepts in learners' cognitive structure". The so-called non-artificial and substantial connection refers to the connection between the new symbols or concepts represented by symbols and the existing representations, meaningful symbols and concepts or propositions in learners' cognitive structure. For example, the symbol of the word "dog" is related to the existing representation of "dog" in children's cognitive structure, which shows that the symbol learning of "dog" has gained substantial psychological significance. This is the simplest and most meaningful learning. For more complex learning, such as "bedroom", it is necessary to make a new knowledge association with the original concepts and representations of "bed" and "room" for students to obtain the meaning of the new concept.
Ausubel divides students' learning into receptive learning and discovery learning according to their learning styles. According to the content of learning, learning can be divided into mechanical learning and meaningful learning.
Accepted learning means that learners connect the learning materials presented to them in the form of ready-made conclusions with their already formed cognitive structure, so as to realize the mastery of this learning material.
Discovery learning is a way for students to acquire new knowledge and seek solutions to problems on their own without being told by teachers. Discovery learning depends on learners' autonomous discovery.
Mechanical learning, that is, learning without understanding and reciting, that is, just memorizing learning materials mechanically.
The essence of meaningful learning process is to make the new knowledge represented by symbols establish a non-artificial and substantive connection with the existing appropriate concepts in learners' cognitive structure. The theory of meaningful learning emphasizes that the original concept of appropriateness in cognitive structure plays a decisive role in the learning of new knowledge, and this original concept of appropriateness plays a fixed role in the learning of new knowledge. Meaningful learning requires two conditions: students should have the intention of meaningful learning, that is, the intention of linking new knowledge with the original appropriate concepts in the cognitive structure; Learning materials have potential significance for learning, that is, learning materials have logical significance and can be associated with related concepts in students' cognitive structure. These two conditions are indispensable, otherwise it will lead to mechanical learning.
Acceptance → discovery, machinery → meaning are two dimensions that divide learning. These two dimensions are not interdependent and independent. Accepting learning can be mechanical or meaningful; It is found that learning can be mechanical or meaningful. There can be many forms of transition between these two dimensions.
Ausubel's learning classification is a primitive classification. This classification points out the division and difference between meaningful learning and mechanical learning, receptive learning and discovery learning, and reveals the law that students' learning is mainly meaningful receptive learning. This has great theoretical significance and guiding role in developing students' intelligence, cultivating creativity and realizing the goal of "teaching for migration".
Ausupol believes that meaningful learning must meet the following conditions:
1. The new learning material itself has logical significance.
2. Learners' cognitive structure has a suitable knowledge base (fixed point) for the absorption of new materials, which is convenient for the connection with new knowledge, that is, there is a necessary starting point.
3. Learners must also have the intention of meaningful learning, that is, the tendency to actively associate old and new knowledge.
4. Learners must learn to actively make this potential new knowledge interact with the old knowledge in the cognitive structure.
Conditions and laws of learning transfer
Learning transfer generally refers to the influence of one learning experience on another. Learning transfer does not happen automatically, but is limited by certain conditions, among which the most important factors are the common factors of learning objects, the generalization level of original experience and the cognitive skill level of transfer. Ausubel expressed these factors as follows: first, the common factors of learning objects. Only by analyzing the experience of old and new learning, and then summing up their common experience components, can the transfer be realized. Therefore, when migrating, the learning objects should objectively have common factors. Second, the generalization level of original experience. The transfer here is not the transfer of the same experience, but the transfer of conceptual principles, especially the transfer of subordinate learning. Psychological research and experiments show that the higher the generalization level of experience, the greater the possibility of migration and the better the effect. Third, the cognitive skill level of migration. The process of migration is realized through complex cognitive activities, and whether or not to master cognitive skills, that is, legal cognitive activities, will affect the realization of migration. Sometimes the learners have common factors, or have a high degree of generalization of existing knowledge and experience, but learners still can't transfer new learning content, because although they have mastered relevant knowledge, they have not mastered the cognitive skills to solve problems in transfer.
Principles and connotation of explanatory teaching
In order to promote students' meaningful learning and the development of cognitive structure, Ausubel advocated interpretation teaching, required careful design of teaching content, and put forward two principles for arranging teaching content. He pointed out: "No matter which subject, there are two principles applicable to the sequential arrangement of teaching materials, namely, the principle of gradual differentiation and the principle of comprehensive integration." These two principles are not only the principles of meaningful learning but also the principles of explanatory teaching.
The principle of progressive differentiation means that the arrangement of teaching content should follow the principle from general to individual. First, we should teach the most general and inclusive concepts, and then gradually distinguish them according to specific details. The principle of gradual differentiation not only conforms to the natural order of human obtaining cognitive content, but also conforms to the way of representation, organization and storage of knowledge in human cognitive structure.
The principle of integration and reconnection means that the horizontal organization of teaching content should consider the similarities and differences of existing concepts in students' cognitive structure. The function of this principle is to enable students to identify the relationship between each concept and other parallel concepts, eliminate the contradictions and confusion between them, and thus make their knowledge clearer and more consolidated.
The Origin and Development of "Advance Organizer" Teaching Strategy
In order to activate the substantive connection between old and new knowledge and improve the effective influence of existing knowledge on knowledge acceptance, Ausubel put forward the teaching strategy of "advance organizer". "Advance organizer" has its strict definition, that is, the summary and inclusive guidance materials introduced to students before learning formal materials are related to the appropriate knowledge in students' original cognitive structure. In terms of abstraction, summarization and inclusiveness, it should be higher than formal learning materials and presented in terms familiar to students. That is, the guidance materials presented before the new learning materials. The purpose of designing "organizer" is to help students integrate and maintain more detailed and differentiated content in formal learning materials, and to build a bridge between the known and the unknown for learners, so as to learn new materials more effectively. Organizers can be divided into declarative organizers and comparative organizers. The former provides the most suitable category for new learning, and the latter lies in comparing new materials with similar materials in cognitive structure. Ausubel believes that meaningful acceptance and speech learning are the most important ways for children to acquire book knowledge in school. Ausubel believes that there are three kinds of meaningful learning, namely symbol learning, concept learning and proposition learning. Designing an "organizer" is to provide an "advance organizer" before presenting formal learning materials when students' cognitive structure still lacks suitable and available knowledge in some concept learning and proposition learning. There are three main forms of assimilation of original knowledge to new knowledge: generic, general and parallel combination. Designing "organizers" is helpful to the assimilation of the first two forms. The process of incorporating new knowledge into the original related aspects of cognitive structure is called generic, also known as subordinate learning. It can be divided into derived genera and related genera. Derivative class means that the learning material is only understood as a special case of the original concept in the cognitive structure, or an example of the general proposition that has been learned. The related category means that the new learning materials are only the expansion, accuracy, modification or restriction of the original learning proposition. This kind of learning is fast and effective, but more general knowledge should be taken as the pillar to absorb new knowledge. If students don't have appropriate ideas as a fixed point before learning new knowledge, teachers should provide "organizers". If students learn a new general proposition, some subordinate concepts in the cognitive structure can be classified under this new proposition, which will produce blanket learning, also called upper learning.
The proposition of "advance organizer" is based on the following theory: the cognitive structure is organized by levels, and learners' knowledge in a certain field follows the principle of constantly distinguishing cognitive organizations in the cognitive structure. Specifically, when new materials enter the cognitive field, they interact with concepts with high inclusion in the cognitive structure and belong to these concepts. If new knowledge can be linked with the stable original concept in the cognitive structure, then the material will have the category attribute, and learners will understand the new knowledge and cause the continuous differentiation of the original cognitive structure. If learning a new material has no classifiable properties, learners tend to memorize the content of the material mechanically, so there are mechanical memories and meaningful memories.
Advanced organizer theory dialectically views receptive learning, which is accepted by teachers. A large number of experiments have proved that it can produce obvious positive effects when used in teaching, so it has been unanimously affirmed by the teaching community.
Learning motivation
In Ausubel's view, learning motivation is mainly composed of three internal driving forces:
1. Cognitive internal drive
Cognitive internal drive is the most important and stable part of the three components of achievement motivation, which mostly exists in the learning task itself. The so-called cognitive drive refers to students' desire to know, understand and master knowledge, as well as their tendency to state and solve problems. In short, it is the demand for knowledge. This is the most important motivation in meaning learning. It originates from students' curiosity tendency and psychological tendency to explore, operate, understand and cope with the environment. What needs to be pointed out here is that these psychological tendencies are all potential motivation factors at first, and they have neither content nor direction. On the one hand, these potential motivations become actual motivation factors, because they are the result of successful study, and students expect to get satisfactory results in their future study; On the other hand, it is the result of the influence of family and social stakeholders. For example, in the United States, social culture is guided by utilitarianism, competition and achievement. With the growth of students' age, these motivation sources have more and more influence on learning. It can be seen that cognitive drive, as the vitality of internal motivation, is weakened by external motivation such as competing for scores, caring about reputation or worrying about failure. Therefore, Ausubel put forward that in order to form students' cognitive internal driving force and make it the driving force for students to study at school, we must abandon such an educational theory: let the curriculum adapt to the current concerns and let students adapt to life. In other words, we must attach importance to the value of cognition and understanding, and take this as the purpose, rather than taking profit as the primary goal. Ausubel thinks that the influence of motivation variables on cognitive learning and memory process is different from that of cognitive variables. Motivation variables are generally not directly related to the process of cognitive learning. They affect the cognitive process by strengthening efforts, attention and preparation for learning. The experimental results show that students with higher performance requirements are more persistent, more effective in learning and more eager to get solutions in the process of problem solving than students with lower performance requirements. The perseverance of students' learning is related to the intensity of cognitive drive. The study of attention shows that only some methods to guide students to pay attention to the teaching content, no matter how much attention students pay, can not improve their academic performance. Therefore, one of the best ways to improve students' cognitive drive is to make the learning situation attractive. As for the relationship between preparation and academic performance, it has long been confirmed by a large number of studies.
Similarly, the influence of motivation variables on memory is generally mediated by selective inhibition of recognition and reproduction, so motivation variables only affect the extraction of specific information. For example, memory information that causes guilt is often suppressed. But this kind of situation will not happen frequently in general classroom learning.
Therefore, motivation is the cause of cognitive learning, but more is the result of cognitive learning. The teacher's duty is to make students interested in cognition itself. The best way is to keep the new learning content at an appropriate distance from the students' cognitive structure, which is the most effective way to stimulate the cognitive drive. However, if students don't have the motivation to learn, they don't have to wait until they do. As long as teachers can make students learn meaningfully and satisfy them in their studies, they will show their motivation to learn.
2. Self-improvement of internal drive
The internal motivation of self-improvement is the need to win a certain social status through hard work, competence in a certain job and certain achievements. The difference between cognitive internal drive and cognitive internal drive lies in: the direction of cognitive internal drive is knowledge content itself, which is satisfied with acquiring knowledge and understanding things; The internal driving force of self-improvement points to a certain social status, which is the satisfaction of winning a certain status. Because in society, an achievement can always win a position, and the size of the achievement determines the level of his winning a position. Therefore, success has become a prerequisite for winning status. And because the results are commensurate with the level of ability. In this way, the pursuit of status leads to the improvement of achievement and ability, and becomes the internal driving force of self-improvement. From this point of view, the pursuit of status is the direct goal of motivation; Achievement and ability improvement are indirect goals. Obviously, the internal driving force of self-improvement is an external driving force.
For students, the internal drive of self-improvement is the second component of achievement motivation. It can urge students to point their learning goals to their ideal career or academic achievements in the future, thus winning a certain social status. During the study period, self-improved achievement motivation can urge students to pursue excellent academic performance or higher ranking. In a word, self-improvement of learning motivation will make students work harder, improve their ability, get good grades and win a superior position among their peers. Obviously, the self-improvement of learning motivation is an important source of motivation to stimulate students to study hard.
Compared with the internal driving force of cognition, the internal driving force of self-improvement belongs to external and indirect learning motivation. But its action time is often longer than the internal driving force of cognition. The internal driving force of cognition often changes with the change of learning content. When the content of learning can't stimulate students' cognitive interest, the cognitive internal driving force will decline or turn. Therefore, the internal driving force of cognition is difficult for most students or most subjects to play a lasting incentive role. Once the internal motivation of self-improvement points to lofty ideals or is combined with long-term goals, it will become a long-term force to spur students to study hard and continue to struggle. Therefore, cultivating students to set up lofty ideals and ambitions in teaching is an effective measure to stimulate students to improve their internal drive.
There are many teaching measures to cultivate and motivate students to improve themselves. The teacher praised the students whose academic performance improved in time. Teachers' high expectations of students, carrying out appropriate learning competitions, praising or rewarding outstanding students, and providing examples for underachievers can cultivate and stimulate students' self-improvement. These measures can be regarded as positive incentives. Proper use of reasonable punishment in teaching can also stimulate self-improvement and internal drive. For example, strict academic assessment, scientific performance evaluation, and criticism or punishment of students who don't work hard can all play a role in stimulating students to improve their internal drive. However, these negative incentives must be appropriate. Excessive demands and pressures will make students feel anxious about learning, which will lead to the decline of learning effect. Too strict requirements and severe punishment will also make students lose confidence and self-confidence, thus damaging their self-esteem and reducing their ideals and ambitions. Continuous academic failure will also reduce students' ambition level, leading to students' withdrawal and avoidance. Therefore, this kind of negative incentive measures must be used appropriately, which varies from person to person. For students with strong psychological endurance, certain potential and strong inertia, we should appropriately increase the pressure and improve the punishment; For students with weak psychological endurance and low ability, more positive incentives should be adopted and appropriate negative pressure should be given.
Excessive emphasis on the role of the internal driving force of self-improvement will encourage students' utilitarian tendency. Make students regard learning as a means to pursue fame and fortune and reduce their interest in the learning task itself. Therefore, cultivating and stimulating the internal driving force of self-improvement must be combined with cultivating and stimulating students' cognitive internal driving force, so that both internal driving force and external driving force can play their due roles in promoting learning.
3. Auxiliary internal drive
Accessory internal drive means that individuals need to study or work well in order to maintain the recognition or recognition of their elders or authorities. For students, the additional internal driving force is that students need to study hard and get good grades in order to win the recognition or recognition of their parents or teachers. The affiliated internal drive is obviously different from the self-improvement internal drive. The main differences are as follows: (1) the pursuit of different purposes. The internal driving force of self-improvement is to win a certain social status; Accessory internal drive pursues the approval of elders or authoritative figures. ⑵ The internal driving force of self-improvement takes the improvement of one's own ability and academic performance as the intermediary, and is satisfied with showing one's own ability and talent, which is recognized by the public; The auxiliary internal drive is mediated by meeting or reaching the requirements of elders or authorities, and satisfied by being recognized and praised by elders or authorities. (3) The goal corresponding to the internal drive of self-improvement is the individual goal internalized under the influence of objective society; The goal of subsidiary internal drive is decided by elders or authoritative figures. (4) Driven by the affiliated internal drive, students will gain a derivative position from the recognition and praise of elders or authoritative figures. However, this status is different from a certain social status won by the internal drive of self-improvement. This derivative position is not determined by the student's own ability or achievement level, but is extended by the praise given by his elders or authoritative figures who follow and attach to him.
The additional internal driving force has obvious age characteristics. In younger children, accessory internal drive is the main component of achievement motivation. With the growth of children's age and the improvement of independence, the internal driving force of attachment not only weakens in intensity, but also shifts from parents and teachers to peers in attachment objects. In adolescence, recognition or recognition from peers will become a powerful incentive factor.