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[d] knowledge primarily by being exposed directly to it rather than through discovery” (Woolfolk et al., 2010, p. 288)[6] In other words, Ausubel believed that understanding concepts, principles, and ideas are achieved through deductive reasoning.[6] 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 [he] had to reduce all of educational psychology to just one principle, [he] 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)[7] Through his belief of meaningful learning, Ausubel developed his theory of advance organizers.
Advance organizers
An advance organizer is information presented by an instructor that helps the student organize new incoming information.[8] This is achieved by directing attention to what is important in the coming material, highlighting relationships, and providing a reminder about relevant prior knowledge.[6]
Advance organizers make it easier to learn new material of a complex or otherwise difficult nature, provided the following two conditions are met:
1. The student must process and understand the information presented in the organizer—this increases the effectiveness of the organizer itself.[6]
2. The organizer must indicate the relations among the basic concepts and terms that will be used
“The most persuasively voiced criticism of advance organizers is that their definition and construction are vague and, therefore, that different researchers have varying concepts of what an organizer is and can only rely on intuition in constructing one-- since nowhere, claim the critics, is it specified what their criteria are and how they can be constructed” (Ausubel, 1978, p. 251).[10]
In a response to critics, Ausubel defends advance organizers by stating that there is no one specific example in constructing advance organizers as they “always depends on the nature of the learning material, the age of the learner, and his degree of prior familiarity with the learning passage” (Ausubel, 1978, p. 251).[10]
Another criticism of Ausubel’s advance organizers is that the critics often compare the idea of advance organizers with overviews. However, Ausubel has addressed that issue in saying that advance organizers differ from overviews “in being relatable to presumed ideational content in the learner’s current cognitive structure” (Ausubel, 1978, p. 252).[10]
Thirdly, critics also address the notion of advance organizers on whether they are intended to favour high ability or low ability students. However, Ausubel notes that “advance organizers are designed to favour meaningful learning..” (Ausubel, 1978, p. 255).[10] Therefore, to question whether advance organizers are better suited for high or low ability students is unrelated as Ausubel argues that advance organizers can be catered to any student to aid them in bridging a gap between what they already know and what they are about to learn.
Refere
Theory
Ausubel, whose theories are particularly relevant for educators, considered neo-behaviorist views inadequate. Although he recognized other forms of learning, his work focused on verbal learning. He dealt with the nature of meaning, and believes the external world acquires meaning only as it is converted into the content of consciousness by the learner.
Ausubel, 2000
LeFrancois, 1972. http://tip.psychology.org/ausubel.html According to the concept set forth by Ausubel, the acquisition of knowledge is based on the actual processes that occur during learning. The key process that takes place in the learner's brain is subsumption, wherein new content is related to relative ideas that are already present in the existing cognitive structure on a non-verbatim basis. Cognitive structures is what’s left in the human brain from all the learning experiences, after forgetting inevitably occurs. So, when some details, facts or situations lose their individual nature, they are then integrated into a general notion. AUSUBEL’S SUBSUMPTION THEORY
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Key Concepts and PrinciplesTheorists
David Ausubel established subsumption Theory in two journal articles (Ausubel, 1960;
Ausubel, 1963). Ausubel’s work with Lillian Robbins and Elias Blake
, Jr. (1957) laid theconceptual foundation of the first article. Later, a series of experiments conducted between 1961and 1963 by Ausubel and Donald Fitzgerald (1961; 1962) and Ausubel and Youssef (1963) informed Ausubel’s second article
. Mayer (1972) expanded on Ausubel’s work by proposing the assimilation encoding hypothesis
(as cited in Corkill, 1992, p. 39). Ausubel
’s proposed hypotheses (particularly in the scope, nature, and application of advance organizers) ignited afervent debate in the learning theory domain that lasted for over three decades, leading to dozensof research studies and two thorough literature reviews (Barnes & Clawson, 1975; Corkill,1992). In addition,
Ausubel’s theories attracted much criticism
(albeit unwarranted) from therealm of schema theorists (Anderson, Spiro, & Anderson, 1978).

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