The Application Of Cognitive Assimilation Learning Theory In History Teaching In Senior High School

Curriculum reform for regular high schools is a crucial element of the reform initiatives of China’s fundamental education and it is of great significance to quality education and balanced development of China’s education. Jiangsu province initiated its new curriculum reform in2005. The curriculum reform has led to the reform of the college entrance examination system. According to the new entrance examination system, for History discipline students will be rated by grades instead of specific scores, which has proposed great challenges to the History curriculum implementation. Each History teacher should consider and explore ways to improve History teaching in high schools and to maximize the benefits to both teachers and students within such a limited time frame.This paper provides details of the history and theoretical basis of the assimilation theory for cognitive learning. Ausubel made a great contribution to language learning researches with his assimilation theory of cognitive learning. He believes students’ learning should be meaningful. Moreover, Ausubel broke down learning into three types:representational learning, concept learning and propositional learning; and his assimilation mode for meaningful learning consists of superordinate learning, subordinate learning and parallel combinatorial learning. Different content would require different learning methods and modes. Furthermore, Ausubel based his organizational learning principles and strategies on the meaningful learning and assimilation of cognitive learning. He also believes motives would affect the effectiveness of learning, which led to his learning motivation theory.The assimilation theory of cognitive learning will help to improve the timeliness of History teaching for regular high schools. In this paper, the author discussed ways to apply such an abstract theory to on-going teaching. The author believes that for high schools, teaching should help students build their mind-set for meaningful learning and inartificial connections between existing and newly learned knowledge and that frequent and sufficient teacher-student communication would also help facilitate meaningful learning. The author further argues that the assimilation mode, combined with learning content for high school students, would help students grasp new knowledge and improve the effectiveness of teaching and learning. This paper also focuses on how to promote meaningful learning for History concept teaching and learning and how to direct History teaching and learning with the Advance Organizer theory.