David Ausubel

David Paul Ausubel ( born 1918 in Brooklyn, New York, NY, † July 9, 2008 in New York) was an American educator, learning theorists and educators.

Life and achievements

Ausubel studied medicine, specialized as a psychiatrist and was on the psychology of education. Based on Jean Piaget, Ausubel developed his own theoretical learning variant of cognitivism. Some authors, however, arrange the theory of Ausubel also to Constructivism ( learning theory ).

Ausubel pointed out that learning in linking new material with existing knowledge is ( assimilation ). Thus, the mother language is for example a tremendous help in foreign language learning and should be used as such in the classroom, according to Ausubel also. To facilitate this linkage between the new and the old, the teacher is the substance clearly pre-structure ( Advance Organizer ' ).

From a similar learning theory and Ausubel, Jerome Bruner goes out, but emphasizes in contrast to Ausubel more substantive than formal learning objectives. Despite the relative consensus between Ausubel and Bruner terms of the objective there was between the two had years of intense controversy around the question of how in teaching cognitive structures are built (to be); Bruner presented to the receptive learning according to Ausubel a discovery learning contrary.

Writings

• The use of advance organizers in the learning and retention of meaningful verbal material. Journal of Educational Psychology, 51, 267-272 ( 1960).
• Learning Theory and classroom practice. Ontario: The Ontario Institute For Studies In Education ( 1967)
• Educational Psychology, A Cognitive View. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston ( 1968).
• In Radical School Reform: Critique and Alternatives, edited by Cornelius J. Troost. Boston: Little, Brown and Company (1973).