Influences
Ausubel was influenced by the teachings of Jean Piaget. Similar to Piaget’s ideas of conceptual schemes, Ausubel related this to his explanation of how people acquire knowledge. “David Ausubel theorized that people acquire knowledge primarily by being exposed directly to it rather than through discovery” (Woolfolk et al., 2010, p. 288) In other words, Ausubel believed that understanding concepts, principles, and ideas are achieved through deductive reasoning.
Similarly, he believed in the idea of meaningful learning as opposed to rote memorization. In the preface to his book Educational Psychology: A Cognitive View, he says that “If had to reduce all of educational psychology to just one principle, would say this: The most important single factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows. Ascertain this and teach him accordingly” (Ausubel, 1968, p. vi) Through his belief of meaningful learning, Ausubel developed his theory of advance organizers.
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Famous quotes containing the word influences:
“The first in time and the first in importance of the influences upon the mind is that of nature. Every day, the sun; and after sunset, night and her stars. Ever the winds blow; ever the grass grows.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Do not seek anxiously to be developed, to subject yourself to many influences to be played on; it is all dissipation.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Professors of literature, who for the most part are genteel but mediocre men, can make but a poor defense of their profession, and the professors of science, who are frequently men of great intelligence but of limited interests and education, feel a politely disguised contempt for it; and thus the study of one of the most pervasive and powerful influences on human life is traduced and neglected.”
—Yvor Winters (1900–1968)