The Cone of 

Experience
By: 
Lovelyn Delos Reyes Vega
“ The cone of experience is a visual analogy, and
like all analogies, it does bear an exact and
detailed relationship to the complex elements it
represents.” – Edgar Dale
There are three (3) Focus Questions:

I. What is the Cone of Experience?

II. What are the sensory aids in the Cone of 
Experience?

III. What are its implications to teaching?
WHAT IS THE CONE OF 
EXPERIENCE?

The Cone of Experience is a visual

model, a pictorial device that presents
bands of experience arranged according
to degree of abstraction and not degree
of difficulty. The farther you go from the
bottom of the cone, the more abstract
the experience becomes.
Mr. Dale (1969) asserts that:
The pattern of the arrangement of the
bands of experience is not difficulty but the
degree of abstraction – the amount of
immediate sensory participation that is
involved. A still photograph of a tree is not
more difficult to understand than a
dramatization of Hamlet. It is simply in itself
a less concrete teaching material than the
dramatization.
“ The individual bands of the Cone of Experience stand 
for experiences that are fluid, extensive, and 
continually interact”. 

It should not be taken literally in its simplified form. 
The different kinds of sensory aid often overlap and 
sometimes blend into one another. Motion pictures can 
be silent or they can combine sight and sound. Students 
may merely view a demonstration or they may view it 
then participate in it.  
Does the Cone of Experience mean that all teaching 
learning must move systematically from base to 
pinnacle, from Direct Purposeful Experiences to Verbal 
Symbols?

Dale (1969) categorically say:
No, we continually shuttle back and forth among
various kinds of experiences. Every day each of us
acquires new concrete experiences- through walking
on the street, gardening, dramatics, and endless
other means. Such learning by doing, such
pleasurable return to the concrete is natural
throughout our lives- and at every age level. On the
other hand, both the older and the child and the
young pupil make abstractions every day and may
need help in doing this well.
In our teaching, then, we do not always begin with
direct experience at the base of the Cone. Rather,
we begin with the kind of experience that is most
appropriate to the needs and abilities of particular
learner in a particular learning situation. then, of
course, we vary this experience with many other
types of learning activities.
One kind of sensory experience is not necessarily more 
educational useful than another. Sensory experiences 
are mixed and interrelated. When students listen to you 
as you give your lecturette, they do not just have an 
auditory experience. They also have visual experience in 
the sense that they are “reading” your facial expressions 
and bodily gestures.
 We faced some risk when we overemphasize the
amount of direct experience to learn a concept. Too
much reliance on concrete experience may actually
obstruct the process of meaningful generalization.
The best will be striking a balance between concrete
and abstract, direct participation and symbolic
expression for the learning that will continue
throughout life.

It is true that the older a person is, the more

abstract his concepts are likely to be. This can be
attributed to physical maturation, more vivid
experiences and sometimes greater motivation for
learning. But an older students does not live only in
the world of sensory experience. Both old and young
shuttle in a world of the concrete and the abstract.
What are these bands of experience in Dale’s Cone of
Experience?
Is it best to look back at the Cone itself. But let us
expound on each of them starting with the most
direct.

 Direct Purposeful Experience- these are first

hand experiences which serve as the foundation of
our learning. We build up our reservoir of meaningful
information and ideas through seeing, hearing,
touching, tasting, and smelling. In the context of the
teaching-learning process, it is learning by doing.

 Contrived Experience- in here, we make use of a

representative models or mock ups of reality for
practical reasons and so that we can make the real-
life accessible to the students’ perceptions and
  Dramatized Experiences- by dramatization, we
can participate a reconstructed experience, even
though the original event is far moved from us in
time.

 Demonstrations- it is a visualized explanation of

an important fact, idea or process by the use of
photographs, drawings, films, replays, or guided
motions. It is showing how things are done.

 
 Study Trips­ these are excursions, educational trips, 
and its conducted to observed an event that is 
unavailable within the classroom.
  Exhibits- these are displays to be seen by
spectators. They may consist of working models
arranged meaningfully or photographs with model,
charts, and posters. Sometimes exhibits is “for your
eyes only”. There are some exhibits, however, that
include sensory experiences where spectators are
allowed to touch and manipulate models displayed.
 Educational Television and Motion Pictures­ 
television and motion picture can reconstruct the 
reality of the past so effectively that we are made to 
feel we are there. The unique value of the messages 
communicated by film and television lies in their 
feeling of realism, their emphasis on persons and 
personality, their organized presentation, and their 
ability to select, dramatize highlight, and clarify.

 Still Pictures, Recordings, Radio­ these are 
visual and auditory devices which may be used by an 
individual or a group. Still Pictures lack the sound 
and motion of a sound film. The Radio broadcast of 
an actual event may often be likened to televised 
broadcast minus its visual dimension.
Visual Symbols­ these are no longer realistic 
reproduction of physical things for these are highly 
abstract representations. 
Examples are : Charts, Graphs, Maps, and Diagrams.

  Verbal Symbols­ they are not like the objects or ideas 
for which they stand. They usually do not contain visual 
clues to their meaning. Written words fall under this 
category. It may be a word for a concrete object (book), an 
idea (freedom of speech), a scientific principle (the 
principle of balance), a formula (e=mc2)
What are the Implications or the Cone of Experience 
in the teaching­learning process?
 We do not use only one medium of communication in the 
isolation. Rather we use many instructional materials to 
help the learner conceptualize his/her experience.
 We avoid teaching directly at the symbolic level of 
thought without adequate foundation of the concrete. 
Learners’ concepts will lack deep roots in direct 
experience. Dale cautions us when he said: “These 
rootless experiences will not have the generative power to 
produce additional concepts and will not enable the 
learner to deal with the new situations that he faces”.
  When teaching we don’t get stuck in the concrete. Let us 
strive to bring our students to the symbolic or abstract 
level to develop their higher order thinking skills.
A. Harvard psychologist, Jerome S. Bruner, presents a 
three­tiered model of learning where he points out that 
every area of knowledge can be presented and learned in 
three distinct steps. Study his model of learning given 
below:
It is highly recommended that a learner proceeds from the 
ENACTIVE to ICONIC and only after to the 
SYMBOLIC. The mind ids often shocked into immediate 
abstraction at the highest level without the benefit of a 
gradual unfolding. 

Question: are the implications of the Cone of Experience 
in the teaching­learning  process the same things that are 
recommended by Bruner’s three­tiered model of learning?
Which learning aids in Edgar  Dale’s Cone of Experience 
correspond/s to each tiered level in Bruner’s model? Write 
your answers on the spaces provided. 
C. A Math professor asked a math student specializing in 
math  why (a + b)2 =a2+2ab+b2

          ( a + b ) ( a + b )

She proceeded with: 
Is this a concrete explanation of the equation? If not, 
what is a concrete representation of the equation?

D. Small Group work
If you teach a lesson on the meaning of ½ ,and 1/4 , 
how will you proceed if you follow the pattern in Dale’s 
Cone of Experience beginning with the concrete moving 
toward the abstract. 
Edgar Dale’s Cone of Experience is a visual 
representation of learning resources arranged to degree of 
abstractness. The farther you move away from the base of 
the cone, the more abstract the learning resources 
presented in the Cone of Experience are:
• Direct Purposeful Experiences
• Contrived Experiences
• Dramatized Experience
• Demonstrations
• Study Trips
• Exhibits
• Educational Television
• Motion Pictures
• Recordings, Radio, Still Pictures
• Visual Symbols
• Verbal Symbols  
The lines that separate the learning experience should not be taken to 
mean that the learning experiences are strictly delineated. Come to 
think of it. Even from the base of the Cone, which is direct purposeful 
experiences, we already use words –verbal symbols­ which are the 
most abstract. In fact, we use words which are verbal symbols, the 
pinnacle of the cone, across the cone from top to bottom. Or many 
times our verbal symbols are accompanied by visual symbols, still 
pictures.

Three pitfalls that we, teachers, should avoid with regard to the use of 
the Cone of Experience are:

 Using one medium in isolation.
 Moving to the abstract without an adequate foundation of concrete 
experience.
 Getting stuck in the concrete without moving to the abstract hampering the 
development of our students’ higher thinking skills.
Making The Connection

  After a lesson on the Cone of experience, can you now explain why our 
teachers in Literature discourage us from reading only comics or illustrated 
comic version of novels which can be read in pocketbooks?
  How does the dictum in philosophy “there is nothing in the mind that was 
not first in some way through the senses” relate to what you learned from the 
Cone of Experience?
 Alfred North Whitehead said: “In the Garden of Eden, Adam saw the animals 
before he named them. In the traditional system, children name the animals 
before they see them”. How would you relate this remark to the Cone of 
Experience?
 When dale formulated the Cone of Experience, computers were not yet a part 
educational or home settings so they are not part of the original Cone. The 
computer technology actively engages the learner, who uses seeing, hearing, 
and physical activity at the keyboard as well as as range of mental skills. 
Where will the computer be on the Cone? 
PS Personal Postscript­ The Cone of Experience: A 
Reminder
If we want our students to remember and master what was 
taught, we cannot ignore what the Cone of Experience reminds us: to 
make use of a combination of as many learning resources as we can 
and to proceed to the abstract only after we have presented the 
concrete. Do we have to end in the abstract? Or should the abstract 
lead us again to the concrete and the concrete to the abstract again? 
So learning is from the concrete to the abstract, from the abstract to 
the concrete and from the concrete to the abstract again? It becomes a 
cycle.
There was once teacher for whom students wrote this comment 
every time the students were asked to evaluate their teacher at the 
end of the semester_ “He never used the CHALKBOARD”. 
Discussion Questions:
1.What are the learning aids found in the Cone of 
Experience?

2.How are the experiences of reality arranged in the Cone 
of Experience?

3.Which way is closest to the real world?

4.Which way is farthest from the real world, in this sense 
most abstract?

5.In the basis of the arrangement of experiences difficulty 
of experience or degree of abstraction (the amount of 
immediate sensory participation involved)?
6.Do the bands of experience (e.g. direct experiences, contrived 
experiences, etc.) follow a rigid, inflexible pattern? Or is it 
more correct to think that the bands experience in the Cone 
overlap and blend into one another?
7.Does the Cone of Experience device mean that all teaching 
and learning must move systematically from base to pinnacle?
8.Is one kind of sensory experience more useful educationally 
than another?
9. Can we overemphasize the amount of direct experiences 
that is required to learn a new concept?
10.Are the upper levels of the cone for the older student and 
the lower ones for the child?
11.The base of the Cone of Experience (direct purposeful 
experiences) is much wider than its apex (verbal symbols). 
Does this have any educational significance? Any meaning 
that you can derive?
12.What is the Cone of Experience?
WE DON’T ACCEPT ANY QUESTIONS

THANK YOU !!!!