Jerome Bruner 1915-
Descriptive Reflection
Bruner believes that any individual from a young age through to adult has the potential to understand any material through proper guidance and well organised instruction. This contrasts Piaget’s view that individual’s learn specific skills and knowledge at different stages of development (Wikipedia, 2007). Bruner’s theoretical framework has a theme that learning is an active process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based upon their current and past knowledge. The learner selects and transforms information, constructs hypothesis, and makes decision, relying on cognitive structure to do so (constructivist, 2007). These points put this theory into the “constructivist” category. Bruner states that a theory of instruction should address four major aspects:
• Predisposition towards learning - Instruction must be concerned with the experiences and contexts that make the student willing and able to learn (readiness)
• The ways in which a body of knowledge can be structured so that it can be most readily grasped by the learner
• The most effective sequences in which to present material
• Good methods for structuring knowledge should result in simplifying, generating new propositions, and increasing the manipulation of information – going beyond the information given
Critical Reflection
I feel that Bruner’s theory of instruction is more open minded than Piaget’s theory. I refer to Bruner’s idea that anyone can learn anything with the proper instruction regardless of age or developmental stage, as proposed by Piaget. This point about proper instruction makes me think more about the way I would like to structure my teachings, in a way that all students want to learn and can do so by what is taking place in the classroom.
References:
Wikipedia, Retrieved on April 03, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome_Bruner
Ferrer, M. Constructivist. Retrieved on April 03, 2007, from
http://www.west.net/~ger/Orientation/constructivist.html
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