Dale's Learning Pyramid

Originally this instructional design (ID) model was developed by the National Training Laboratories Institute (NTL) in the 60's, but was later attributed to the educator Edgar Dale since the NTL lost their main study on the Learning Pyramid (also known as the "Cone of Experience").

Dale's Cone of Experience was intended to provide an intuitive model of the effectiveness of various kinds of audiovisual media used in education. It claims to inform people of how much information learners retained, based on how the information was presented to them.

Since the NTL somehow lost their study on the effectiveness of this learning method, the theory largely stands on an unknown methodology of unknown quality with unknown mitigation of influential parameters such as time, population tested, etc., making the ID model super untrustworthy. Ultimately, this instructional design model has not been scientifically tested and Dale himself actually warned readers to not take the cone too seriously. Critics reported inconsistencies between the pyramid of learning and established research in pedagogy.

In general, the Learning Pyramid is represented like this:

The least effective method of learning is said to be listening to a lecture or reading, and the most effective (most retention of knowledge) occurs when learners design or perform a presentation that exhibits what they've learned, puting the knowledge to action.

Again, this instructional design model has not been scientifically tested and has no data to back up its assertions. I do not know why anyone would actually still be using this method because it does contradict some other models that have been scientifically studied.