David Ausubel was an influential educational psychologist who made major contributions to instructional design. He conceived the idea of "advanced organizers", which provide an overview of new concepts before instruction to help students integrate new knowledge with prior learning. Ausubel believed instruction should begin with general ideas and progressively provide more specifics. Teachers should use advanced organizers, present material in logical steps, check for understanding, and summarize lessons. His work emphasized relating new concepts to existing knowledge structures in learners' minds.

1. David Ausubel A Perspective By Sean Hagon N515

2. Bio-So Who Was He? David P. Ausubel Born in 1918 and resided in Brooklyn, N.Y. Attended University of Penn as a pre-med student and majoring in psychology Graduated from medical school at Middlesex University Received his Ph D in Developmental Psychology from Columbia University

3. Professional Life Served in the military with the US Public Health Service He taught as a professor of psychology at various colleges including: University of Illinois, University of Toronto, and in the European universities at Berne, the Salesian University at Rome, and the Officer's Training College at Munich. Retired in 1973 from academic life to devote himself full time to his psychiatric practice He retired from professional life in 1994 while still devoting his time to writing books. He died in July of 2008 at the age of 89

4. Achievements He wrote a series of books on developmental and educational psychology Theory and Problems of Adolescent Development and In Defense of Advanced Organizers Education Psychology and specialized topics such as drug addiction, psychopathology, and ego development Over 150 articles in psychological and psychiatric journals.

5. Ausubel’s Major Contributions That Apply To Multimedia Conceived a major instructional mechanism he called “Advanced Organizers ” Simply put-This method provided a means for students to organize the ideas to be presented by stating in advance what the lesson will focus on and how it will be structured. Lessons begin by linking new knowledge to what was already known through examples, analogies and metaphors. Use periodic review questions and then a final summary. All would apply to an online learning e-course.

6. As a result, Ausubel's theory, like Gagne's, suggests how teachers or instructional designers can best arrange the conditions that facilitate learning for students. The main idea in Ausubel's theory is that knowledge is sequentially and hierarchically organized; that new information is meaningful to the extent that it can be related (attached, anchored) to what is already known.

7. Principles Related To Multimedia In applying these principles, Ausubel developed his theory of Reception Learning This places the teachers and students in specific roles and follows a certain sequential path Let’s take a closer look at how these roles would work…

8. For The Student Relate new ideas that have already been established or learned Seek to understand the similarities and differences between new material and related concepts Translate what is learned into an organized reference that reflects upon past experience or prior knowledge Reorganize this existing knowledge to formulate new ideas

9. For The Teacher Start the lessons with “advanced organizers” that include general principles or by using questions that will aid students in learning to systematically integrate the material. Introduce the students to key concepts and briefly describe the learning objective. Present new information in small, logically organized steps and in a sequence that is easy to follow. Regularly receive responses to engage the learner and confirm that each step is thoroughly understood before moving on to the next one. Finish the lesson with a review or summation of the main points. Follow up the lesson with questions, activities or assignments that require the learner to encode the material on their own and apply it.

10. In Summation The general ideas of a subject should be presented first and then progressively differentiated in terms of detail and specifics. It’s important for instructional materials to integrate new material with previously presented information by comparing and cross-referencing new and old ideas.

11. In Other Words… “ Tell them what you are going to tell them; then tell them; then tell them what you told them.” - David Ausubel

12. References The Psychology of Learning and the Art of Teaching By John A. Kaufhold. Published by iUniverse, 2002 Strategies For Effective Teaching 2nd Edition By Allan C. Ornstein. Published by Brown & Benchmark, 1995 http://tip.psychology.org/ ausubel .html http://www3.hi.is/~ joner / eaps / wh _ ausub . htm