COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT -JEROME S. BRUNER

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT -JEROME S. BRUNER

Born 10-01-1915 in New York. At the age of 2 underwent surgeries to correct vision impairment due to cataracts.  Attended Duke University in North Carolina where he obtained a BA in 1937. Received a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1941.Jerome S. Bruner is considered as the advocate of learning by discovery

According to Bruner the outcome of cognitive development is thinking. According to Bruner (1960), effective learning occurs when students acquire a general understanding of a subject; that, when they understand the structure of a subject, they see it as a related whole. According to Bruner, mind organises knowledge in a hierarchical fashion, with the more general, all encompassing ideas at the top of hierarchy, and the more concrete, factorial ideas toward the bottom. Bruner believes that important outcomes of learning include not only just the concepts, categories, and problem-solving procedures invented previously in the culture, but also the ability to “invent” these things for one’s self. According to Bruner, one’s intellectual ability evolves as a result of maturation, training and experiences through a series of three sequential stages – the enactive ,iconic and symbolic. 

Enactive Stage

 Knowledge is primarily stored in the form of motor responses.  This is not just limited to children. A baby represents world through actions   - Our knowledge for motor skills (eg riding a bike) are represented in the enactive mode. They become automatic through repetition. Many adults can perform a variety of motor tasks such as typing, sewing etc.

Iconic Stage

  Knowledge is stored primarily in the form of visual images. knowledge represented through visual or auditory images – icons. when we are learning a new subject, it is often helpful to have diagrams or illustrations to accompany verbal information.

Symbolic Stage

Knowledge is stored primarily as words, mathematical symbols, or into other symbol systems. major change at 6/7 yrs – language starts to influence thought. Not so dominated by appearance of things children can think beyond images and use symbols such as words or numbers.

BASES OF BRUNER'S THEORY OF COGNITIVE GROWTH

Bruner believes that cognitive development takes into account the following points.

INDEPENDENCE OF RESPONSE FROM STIMULUS

Intellectual growth in children is influenced by increasing independence of responses from stimulus. In sensory-motor stage, the responses of children are mainly governed by various stimuli. As children grow and acquire language ability, they respond to different situations independent of the presence of stimuli.

MENTAL REPRESENTATIONS

Children develop mental representations of the outside reality through internal information processing and storage system. These mental representations may be verbal, visual, mathematical or musical. Language helps a child form mental representations of the realities outside.

SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS

Intellectual development involves an increasing capacity to say to ourselves and others, in words or with symbols, what we have done and what we will do. This point deals with self consciousness. (Gage and Berliner, 1984).

TUTOR-LEARNER INTERACTIONS

Cognitive growth, according to Bruner, depends on constant interactions between tutor and learners. A tutor can be teacher, mother, father, friend or any other person who can teach a child.

LANGUAGE AS THE KEY

Language is a key symbol, which plays an important role in cognitive development. It helps a child to communicate her conceptions of the world. It mediates various events occurring in the world.

SIMULTANEITY IN COGNITION

Cognitive growth in children is characterized by their ability to engage in simultaneous cognition. They can perform concurrent activities and pay attention to various learning situations.

Discovering learning

Teacher plans and arranges  activities in such a way that students search, manipulate, explore, and investigate. Students learn new knowledge relevant to the domain and such general problem-solving skills as formulating rules, testing and gathering information.

Most discovery does not happen by chance. Students require background preparation. Once students possess prerequisite knowledge careful structuring of material allows them to discover important principles. 

Spiral Curriculum

Bruner  introduced the doctrine of the spiral curriculum, that all topics -in some form -must be introduced at an early age, but cannot be exhausted at any age, and thus must be returned to in increasing depth.

 In order for a student to develop from simple to more complex lessons, certain basic knowledge and skills must first be mastered.  This provides linkages between each lesson as student spirals upwards in a course of a study.    As new knowledge and skills are introduced, they reinforce what is already learned and become related to previously learned information. 

Indicators of cognitive development

1) Respond to situations in varied ways.

2) Internalize the events into a storage system (that corresponds to the environment).

3) Have increased capacity for language.

4) Interact systematically with the tutor.

5) Use language as an isntrument for ordering the environment.

6) Have increasing capacity to deal with multiple demands.

Bruner (1996) states that a theory of instruction should address four major aspects

   1. Predisposition to learn.

            He introduced the ideas of “readiness for learning”. Instruction must be concerned with the experiences and context that make the student willing and able to learn.

2. Structure of Learning

            Instruction must be structured so that it can be easily grasped by the students. The ways in which a body of knowledge can be structured so that it can be most readily grasped by the leaner.

3. Effective Sequencing

            Instruction should be designed to facilitate extrapolation and or fill in the gaps. No one sequencing will fit every learner, but in general, the lesson can be presented in increasing difficulty.

4. Reinforcement

            Rewards and punishment should be selected and paced appropriately.

Bruner’s theory - key points

•      Development involves mastery of increasingly more complex modes of thinking from enactive to Symbolic

•      As skills learned they become automatic and become units that can be combined to build up a new set of skilled behaviours

•      Learning not a gradual process

•      Stresses role of language & interpersonal communication.

•      Emphasizes need for active involvement by experts.

•      Instruction = essential part of learning process in natural and educational settings.