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THE LEARNING PYRAMID - SOME ACTIVE AND PASSIVE LEARNING METHODS

While some educationists choose to incorporate more recent studies, many modern teachers use the learning pyramid to comprehend how the learning process works. You can use the learning pyramid to identify specific techniques for the class as educational psychologists continue to study how people learn today. We define a learning pyramid, identify its elements, and offer advice for teachers on how to use it in the classroom in this article.

Edgar Dale, an expert in education, developed the Learning Pyramid for the first time in the 1940s. Dale refers to it as the "Cone of Experience" in his book "Audio-Visual Methods in Teaching". Later, it was improved upon and given the new name "The Learning Pyramid" by National Training Laboratories Institute.

A learning pyramid is a visual representation of the seven learning strategies and their relative efficacy in terms of memory retention. The National Training Laboratories Institute conducted substantial study that served as the basis for these figures.

According to the "learning pyramid" created by the National Training Laboratory, students typically only retain around 10% of the information they read in textbooks but approximately 90% of it when they instruct others. The Learning Pyramid paradigm contends that some study techniques are superior to others. For more in-depth learning and long-term memory retention, a general understanding of the Learning Pyramid is helpful.


THE LEARNING PYRAMID

Courtesy: Blog, Melanie Hall, 2022


THE LEARNING PYRAMID


1. Lecture

One of the least efficient techniques for understanding and remembering information is "lecture". The students simply sit back and listen while information is spoon-fed to them by their teacher or professor during a lecture, which is a passive learning method. However, compared to students who have non-auditory learning styles, auditory learners typically regard lectures to be more interesting and educational.

2. Reading

Reading is still one of the less effective ways to learn and remember information, while being more successful than lectures, according to the Learning Pyramid. However, reading textbooks will probably be a more effective learning strategy for the students if they have a visual learning style than it will be for pupils who don't.

3. Audio-visual

According to the learning pyramid, audio-visual learning techniques only result in a 20% recall of the knowledge learnt. Various audio-visual teaching and learning resources, such as movies, sound, images, and graphs, may be used in the audio-visual learning approach.

4. Demonstration

In order to demonstrate, a teacher or professor typically gives the students access to a learning exercise that they can observe. Demonstration is the first of the seven study strategies in the Learning Pyramid to entail active learning. When compared to passive learning approaches, demonstration usually leaves pupils with less room for misunderstanding and promotes deeper knowledge. An efficient study technique is demonstration, particularly when the information is hazy or unclear.

5. Discussion

A kind of cooperative learning is discussion. It is an active study technique that can help students do better academically and retain more of the knowledge they have learned. Discussions depend on students talking to each other and learning content with teachers and other students. Discussion groups are designed to encourage critical thinking among students and to boost involvement and engagement.

6. Practice (by) doing

One of the best ways to learn and study is by practise by doing, which is a type of "Discover Learning". This technique of learning promotes deeper comprehension and helps knowledge move from short-term to long-term memory by encouraging pupils to apply what they learn. Learning becomes more personal and meaningful for pupils when they put it into practise.

7. Teach others

Teaching people about a subject is essential for mastery. The students will have a very good grasp of the concepts, as well as superior memory and recall, if they can precisely and correctly teach a subject to others. The Learning Pyramid model states that pupils retain roughly 90% of what they may impart to others.

Don't think that lectures aren't significant just because the Learning Pyramid shows they're the least effective study strategy for memory retention. Lectures continue to be crucial. Every learning strategy listed in the Learning Pyramid is significant. Even if you find it challenging to retain everything that is presented in lectures, the notes you make during class could be crucial to your ability to take part in a discussion of the content in your group or to impart the knowledge to others.


You can see how heavily the "passive learning methods" component of the pyramid is used in teacher-centered classrooms. A lecture has traditionally been predicated on students listening intently to a teacher for a significant amount of time with little to no engagement from the students themselves. Therefore, it is necessary to include more active learning techniques in lectures. This is particularly possible with the aid of "group discussion" techniques, "teaching others" techniques, and other activity-based techniques.

Students are given projects, assignments, and seminars, and these teaching techniques must be appropriately adapted because they play a significant role in passive learning.

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