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Jerome Bruner On Cognitive DevelopmentIntroduction "The great psychological questions are being raised once again - questions about the nature of mind and its processes, questions about how we construct our meanings and our realities, questions about the shaping of mind by history and culture." -Jerome Bruner Jerome Bruner (1915- ) has contributed much to theories of cognitive development over the years. His work has influenced the way people think about the process of education and how curriculum should be shaped. His theory tells us that the quality of learning depends on how the data is arranged and the social background of the learner. Learning "Learners are encouraged to discover facts and relationships for themselves." -Jerome Bruner Bruner advocated the approach that children learn things best when they discover them. For example, a child who has played with beads and found out that they cant put seventeen beads into nice even rows is more likely to understand prime numbers than a child who has never done so. He suggests that teachers guide students to such discoveries without appearing to manipulate the students activities. This type of learning is called discovery learning. Ormrod (1995) defined discovery learning as "an approach to instruction through which students interact with their environment-by exploring and manipulating objects, wrestling with questions and controversies, of performing experiments." Spiral Curriculum Since new information builds upon old information, it is imperative that the first layer of education be laid solidly. The learner must be ready for the information and must have a thorough understanding of what builds up to it. This way of thinking is evident in the way mathematics is taught. A child must know how to add before they can learn to multiply, and before they can add, they must know how to count. Without that basic understanding of one, two, three, there is no point is attempting to go further. The same is true of learning to read. The alphabet must be mastered first, and then the rules of phonics. Bruner calls this method of teaching spiral curriculum. A spiral curriculum is organized so that new knowledge always builds on the old knowledge. Memory When it comes to storing knowledge, Bruners theory is similar to Piagets schema. When something is learned, it is put into what Bruner called a storage system, or memory. This storage system is an organized node that allows new information to be processed and stored in the following forms: imagery, concepts, and other representational structures. Anything new that a person encounters will be incorporated into these forms, especially if the learner is interested in the subject at hand. Categorizing Every form of awareness puts data into some category or another in a person's mind. These categories are arranged in order of importance to the perceiver. The items that are placed as most important is later the most easily remembered. Information is grouped by how a person perceives things to relate. Everything is classified by previous knowledge. Sometimes the information put into the mind will be expanded beyond the original data. This will normally bring this topic to higher eminence in the mind, seeing as it is something that has been discovered, not drilled in. Intuition When a person goes through this sort of epiphany, it is normally called intuition. All of the great discoveries can be attributed to intuition. New things are not discovered in a textbook. Then they are not new. Intuition is a critical part of the mental process. Likewise, analytic thinking is a critical part of intuition. Analytic thinking is being able to work through something step by step in your mind and then relate that information to someone else. If one cannot think analytically, then their intuition is useless because noone else knows about it. Discoveries are not really great if they are kept inside the discoverer. Society Bruner maintains that social concerns and education are very closely intertwined. A person will not be as interested in learning something if they see it as totally irrelevant. And what that person learns will have a tremendous effect on how they view the world. This is not to say that schooling and education are the same thing. Bruner (1996) says that What has become increasingly clearis that education is not just about conventional school matters like curriculum or standards of testing. What we resolve to do in school only makes sense when considered in the broader context of what the society intends to accomplish through its educational investment in the young." In other words, schooling is just a small part of our continuing eductation, and is pointless unless what is taught in school is useful to society. Conclusion "Jerome Bruner is not merely one of the foremost educational thinkers of the era; he is also an inspired learner and teacher... Logical analyses, technical dissertations, rich and wide knowledge of diverse subject matters,... intuitive leaps, pregnant enigmas pour forth from his indefagitable mouth and pen. In his words, 'Intellectual activity is anywhere and everywhere, whether at the frontier of knowledge or in a third-grade classroom.'" -Howard Gardner (former student of Bruner) Works Cited Jerome Bruner and the Process of Education, retrieved July 26, 2004 from (http://www.infed.org/thinkers/bruner.htm) Counterpoint: Cognitivism, retrieved July 23, 2004 from (http://www.educ.drake.edu/doc/pedagogy/student_papers/craig_reed/defcog.html) Educational Technology's Effect on Models of Instruction, retrieved July 26, 2004 from(www.copland.udel.edu/~jconway/EDST666.htm#dislrn) Constructivist Theory (J. Bruner) retrieved July 27, 2004 from(http://psycology.org/bruner.html) Jerome Bruner, retrieved July 26, 2004 from(http://facultyweb.cortland.edu/~ANDERSMD/COG/bruner.html)
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