Gagne’s Conditions of Learning

Robert Gagne’s Cumulative Learning

Learning skills are arranged hierarchically from stimulus- response associations to concepts, principles, and
problem solving.

Hierarchy of Learning Gagne’s Conditions of Learning

- Signal learning  9 Events of Instruction
- Stimulus- response learning • Gaining attention
- Chaining/ Motor-verbal response • Informing the learner of the objectives
- Verbal associations • Stimulating recall of prior learning
- Discrimination learning • Presenting the stimulus
- Concept learning • Providing learner guidance
- Principle learning • Eliciting performance
- Problem solving • Giving feedback
• Assessing performance
• Enhancing retention and transfer
Gagne’s Principles
1. Different instruction is required for different learning outcomes.
- There are several types or levels of learning which also calls for different types of instructions.
- Distinct external and internal conditions are required for each type of learning.

Categories of Learning
1. Verbal Information
• Stating previously learned materials such as facts, concepts, principles, and procedures.
2. Intellectual Skills
• Discriminations – distinguishing features, objects, or symbols
• Concrete Concepts – identifying classes of concrete objects, features or events
• Defined concepts – classifying new examples of events or ideas by their definition
• Rules – applying a single relationship to solve a class of problems.
• Higher order rules – applying a new combination of rules to solve a complex problem
3. Cognitive Skills
• Employing personal ways to guide learning, thinking, acting and feeling.
4. Attitudes
• Choosing personal actions based on internal states of understanding and feeling
5. Motor Skills
• Executing performances involving the use of muscles

2. Learning hierarchies define what intellectual skills are to be learned and a sequence of instruction.
- Learning tasks for intellectual skills can be organized in hierarchy according to complexity in
order to identify prerequisites that should be completed to facilitate learning at each level
- Prerequisites are identified by doing a task analysis of a learning task.
- Learning hierarchies provide a basis for sequencing of instruction.

• Stimulus recognition • Discriminations

• Response generation • Concept formation
• Procedure following • Rule application
• Use of terminology • Problem solving

3. Events of learning operate on the learner in ways that constitute the conditions of learning.
- These events should satisfy or provide the necessary conditions of learning and serve as the basis
for designing instructions and selecting appropriate media.

- Events of learning operate on the learner in ways that constitute the conditions of learning.

Reception Gaining attention

Expectancy Informing learners of the objective
Retrieval Stimulating recall of prior learning
Selective perception Presenting the stimulus
Semantic Encoding Providing learning guidance
Responding Eliciting performance
Reinforcement Providing feedback
Retrieval Assessing performance
Generalization Enhancing retention and transfer of learning
David Ausubel’s Meaningful Verbal Learning/ Subsumption Theory

Knowledge is hierarchically organized: new information is meaningful to the extent which it can be
related to what is already known.

About how individuals learn large amounts of meaningful materials from verbal textual
presentations in a school setting.

SUBSUMPTION: the process by which new materials are related to relevant ideas in the existing
cognitive structure.

Focus of the Theory

The quantity, clarity and organization of the learners’ present knowledge (cognitive structure) is the most important factor
influencing learning.

Before new materials can be presented effectively, the learner’s cognitive structure should be strengthened so that
acquisition and retention of new information is facilitated.

This can be done by using ADVANCE ORGANIZERS to allow learners to have a bird’s eye view or see the “big picture”
before going into details.

Meaningful Learning can occur through:

Derivative subsumption – new information you learn is an example of a concept you already know/ learned about.

Correlative subsumption – a more valuable learning than the first one as this enriches the higher-level concept.

Superordinate learning – knowing the examples of concepts first before knowing the concept itself

Combinatorial learning – describes a process by which a new idea is derived from another idea that is of the same
level. Newly acquired knowledge is combined with prior knowledge.

Jerome Bruner’s Constructivist Theory

Bruner’s Constructivist Theory

- Learning is an active process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based upon the
current/ past knowledge.
- Concepts of representations, spiral curriculum, and discovery learning.

1. Representation
• The ability to represent knowledge has three stages:
1. Enactive representation – children learn about
the world through actions on physical objects
and the outcomes of those actions.
2. Iconic representation – learning can be obtained
using models and pictures. This allows one to
recognize objects when they are changed in
minor ways.
3. Symbolic representation – the learner has
developed thinking in abstract terms using
symbol systems (language, mathematical
notations)
 1. Spiral Curriculum
• Teachers must revisit the curriculum by
teaching the same content in different ways
depending on the students’ developmental
levels.
• In this approach, the teaching of concepts
increases in depth and breadth across the
grade levels.
Spiral Curriculum:(Principles of instruction)
- It must be concerned with the
experiences and contexts that make the
student willing and able to learn
(readiness)
- It must be structured so that it can easily
be grasped by the student (spiral
organization)
- It should be designed to facilitate
extrapolation and/ or fill in the gaps
(going beyond the information given)

2. Discovery Learning
• Refers to obtaining knowledge for yourself
• Teachers plan and arrange activities in a way that students search, manipulate, explore and
investigate.

4 Major Aspects that a Theory of Instruction should Address:

1. Predisposition to learn

Readiness for learning

Motivations, culture and social factors contribute to the learners’ move towards love
of learning

Social factors and teachers’ and parents’ influences on the learner also play an
important role

2. Structure of Learning

Ways in which a body of knowledge can be structured (relations between facts and
techniques) so that it can be easily grasped by the learner

Importance of categorization

3. Effective
Sequencing
- No one sequencing will fit every learner but in general, lesson can be presented in increasing
difficulty to make learning easier or more difficult

4. Reinforcement

Rewards and punishments should be selected and paced appropriately.

The best stimulus for learning is the motivation or interest in the subject
matter.