Exploring Subsumption Theory

In a class of thirty students, Mrs. Johnson began to teach about animals. Mrs. Johnson told the children that a horse has four legs, a tail and two pointy looking ears. Next, she showed a picture of a cow. The students shouted “HORSE!” After all, they have many similarities. However, when Mrs. Johnson explained the differences between the two animals, like the sound they make. The students started to make the connections of what they knew about the horse to what they are learning now and differ between the cow and the horse.

Giving the scenario aforesaid, I can safely say subsumption is assimilation in the sense that we take in new information or experiences and merge them into our prior knowledge. It is also accommodation in which prior thoughts are changed given the concept being taught to enable complete understanding. This prior knowledge has been accumulated in our cognitive structure where we are said to have known basic characteristics of what is being taught and what we are asked to learn. According to Piaget’s theory (1970) the schema of a child is determined through series of stages of intellectual growth. As experiences happen and new information is offered, new schematics are developed and old schematics are changed or modified as is shown in the scenario. So it is with the subsumption theory, if the new knowledge is interrelated with our previous knowledge therefore subsumption takes place automatically.

Recker (2011) described three main tenets of the subsumption theory. These are one, the most general ideas of a subject should be presented first and then progressively differentiated in terms of detail and specificity; two, instructional materials should attempt to integrate new material with previously presented...

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