‘Cone of Experience’ related to teaching-learning was suggested by:

Selecting learning experiences for learners is a major consideration when planning a course. Learning by nature is an active process and students learn better when they are involved with their learning and they learn in different ways.

Edgar Dale’s Cone of Experience:

• The Cone was originally developed in 1946, by Edgar Dale and was intended as a way to describe various learning experiences and their retention rates.
• The cone shows the progression of experiences from the most concrete (at the bottom of the cone) to the most abstract (at the top of the cone). The arrangement in the cone is not based on its difficulty but rather based on abstraction and the number of senses involved.
• The base of the cone is characterized by more concrete experiences, such as direct experiences (real-life experiences), contrived experiences (interactive models) and dramatic participation (role plays).

• The middle of the cone is slightly more abstract and is characterized by learners realistically “observing” the experience. It includes demonstrations, field trips, exhibits, motion pictures, and audio recordings or still pictures.
• The peak of the cone is the most abstract where the experiences are represented non-realistically by symbols, either visual or verbal i.e. listening to the spoken word.
• The cone shows that the further you progress down the cone, the greater the learning and the more information is likely to be retained. So the teacher must provide a combination of these learning experiences for better learning and retention.

Hence, it can be seen from the given points that the ‘Cone of Experience’ related to teaching and learning was suggested by Edgar Dale.