The contributions of Jerome Bruner: Learning as discovery

Practice II- 2010

Alietti Ailin

Rodriguez Rocio

“Any subject can be taught effectively in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development.” 

Children’s stages of development

Enactive Stage(from birth to about

age 3)

Children

perceive the environment through actions they initiate.

describe and explain objects in terms of what a child can do with them.

Iconic Stage

(from about age 3 to about age 8)Children

remember and use information through imagery.

their visual memory increases and they think about actions without experiencing them.

decisions based on perception

Symbolic Stage

(from about age 8)

Children

use symbols to represent people and things since they can think and talk in abstract terms.

they can identify “defined” concepts.

Enactive StageIconic Stage

Symbolic Stage

Ball

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.

Implications for education

Bruner concerned about the arrangement for school instructions based on stages of cognitive development.

Discovery learning approach to instructions through which students interact with their environment.

BrunerStudents

more likely to understand

and remember concepts

discovering them by their

own exploration.

Research findings

have discovered mixed results as regards discovery learning.

they found Bruner’s methods unstructured.

Teachers

Discovery learning is most successful when students have prerequisite knowledge and undergo some structured experiencies.

Postures of learning as dicovery

Implications for technology integration

Discovery learning approach by using technology

Radical constructivist

A teacher might allow students to use a simulation that leads them discover the rules themselves.

A teacher may introduce a problem scenario and help students develop their approaches to solving the problems.

“Intellectual activity is anywhere and everywhere, whether at the frontier of knowledge or in a third-

grade classroom”.

Jerome Bruner 1915-