Edgar Dale's Cone of Experience is a visual model that classifies instructional messages based on their level of concreteness, from most concrete like direct experiences down to most abstract like verbal symbols. It is not meant to be a strict ranking but rather a guide to show how concepts are developed through more or less engaging experiences. The cone includes 11 categories of instructional materials like exhibits, demonstrations, and pictures. While useful, it does not provide exact rankings and should not be taken as a perfect representation of the learning process.

1. What Edgar Dale’s Cone of Experience IS and is NOT Presented By Nikki (MacInnes) White Tech 573 Multimedia for Instruction UTK

3. The Authentic Cone “ The Cone of Experience is a visual model, a pictorial device that may help you to think critically about the ways in which concepts are developed. Indeed, you may now be able to apply your ideas about the relationships of interesting, meaningful experiences and abstract, highly symbolic representations .” From Dale, 1969, p. 134 “ [ Do] not mistake the Cone device for an exact rank-order of learning processes. You will understand that the Cone classifies instructional messages only in terms of greater or lesser concreteness and abstractness.” From Dale, 1969, p. 128 Abstract Concrete

4. What are the eleven categories of The Cone of Experience and what are some examples?

5. Verbal Symbols

6. Visual Symbols

7. Recordings Radio Still Pictures

8. Motion Pictures

9. Educational Television

10. Exhibits

11. Study Trips

12. Demonstrations

13. Dramatized Experiences

14. Contrived Experiences

15. Direct Purposeful Experiences

16. “ Instructional materials at all levels of the Cone can help us to extend the web of relationships that our concepts involve. Even the most advanced student, therefore, can deepen his understanding of concepts and his enjoyment of life by participating in experiences all along our Cone. … the Cone of Experience stands for activities that are available, in varying degrees.” From Dale, 1969, p. 132

17. The cone does NOT include statistics, percentages, or numerical representations. BEWARE of Misinformation.

20. #6. Oakland Unified School District Technology Learning Center http://tlc.ousd.k12.ca.us/tlc/sitetech/agendas/documents_81202/Dale's%20Cone.pdf

22. Rather, The Cone of Experience is a Guide to incorporating multimedia into the learning experience. Remember…It is not a steadfast, perfectly constructed data set.