Jerome S. Bruner

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

Ani Vadakke PurayilM.Com, M.Ed. NET(Com),NET(Edu),SET

FacultyDepartment of Teacher Education Kannur UniversityKannur, Kerala.anivpknr@gmail.com

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 cognitivedevelopment is thinking.

According to Bruner (1960), effective learning occurswhen students acquire a general understanding of asubject; that, when they understand the structure of asubject, they see it as a related whole. According toBruner, mind organises knowledge in a hierarchicalfashion, with the more general, all encompassing ideasat the top of hierarchy, and the more concrete,factorial ideas toward the bottom.

Bruner believes that important outcomes of learninginclude not only just the concepts, categories, andproblem-solving procedures invented previously in theculture, but also the ability to “invent” these things forone’s self.

According to Bruner, one’s intellectual abilityevolves as a result of maturation, training andexperiences through a series of three sequentialstages –the enactive ,iconic and symbolic.

Enactive Stage

Knowledge is primarily stored in the form ofmotor responses. This is not just limited tochildren. A baby represents world throughactions - Our knowledge for motor skills (egriding a bike) are represented in the enactivemode. They become automatic throughrepetition

• Many adults can perform a variety of motortasks such as typing, sewing etc.

Iconic Stage

Knowledge is stored primarily in the form ofvisual images. knowledge representedthrough visual or auditory images – icons. Thismay explain why, when we are learning anew subject, it is often helpful to havediagrams or illustrations to accompany verbalinformation.

Symbolic Stage

Knowledge is stored primarily as words,mathematical symbols, or into other symbolsystems. major change at 6/7 yrs – languagestarts to influence thought. Not so dominatedby appearance of things children can thinkbeyond images and use symbols such aswords or numbers.

BASES OF BRUNER'S THEORY OF COGNITIVE GROWTH

Bruner believes that cognitive development takes into account the followingpoints.

INDEPENDENCE OF RESPONSE FROM STIMULUS

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

MENTAL REPRESENTATIONS

Children develop mental representations of the outside reality through internalinformation processing and storage system. These mental representations maybe verbal, visual, mathematical or musical. Language helps a child form mentalrepresentations of the realities outside.

SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS

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

TUTOR-LEARNER INTERACTIONSCognitive growth, according to Bruner, depends on

constant interactions between tutor and learners. Atutor can be teacher, mother, father, friend or anyother person who can teach a child.

LANGUAGE AS THE KEYLanguage is a key symbol, which plays an important role

in cognitive development. It helps a child tocommunicate her conceptions of the world. It mediatesvarious events occurring in the world.

SIMULTANEITY IN COGNITIONCognitive growth in children is characterized by their

ability to engage in simultaneous cognition. They canperform concurrent activities and pay attention tovarious learning situations.

Discovering learningTeacher plans and arranges activities in such a way

that students search, manipulate, explore, andinvestigate. Students learn new knowledgerelevant to the domain and such generalproblem-solving skills as formulating rules,testing and gathering information.

Most discovery does not happen by chance.Students require background preparation. Oncestudents possess prerequisite knowledge carefulstructuring of material allows them to discoverimportant principles.

Spiral Curriculum

Bruner introduced the doctrine of the spiralcurriculum, that all topics -in some form -must beintroduced at an early age, but cannot beexhausted at any age, and thus must be returnedto in increasing depth.

In order for a student to develop from simple tomore complex lessons, certain basic knowledgeand skills must first be mastered. This provideslinkages between each lesson as student spiralsupwards in a course of a study.

As new knowledge and skills are introduced, theyreinforce what is already learned and becomerelated to previously learned information.

Indicators of cognitive development

1) Respond to situations in varied ways.

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

3) Have increased capacity for language.

4) Interact systematically with the tutor.

5) Use language as an isntrument for ordering theenvironment.

6) Have increasing capacity to deal with multipledemands.

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 beconcerned with the experiences and context that make the studentwilling and able to learn.

2. Structure of Learning

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

3. Effective Sequencing

. Instruction should be designed to facilitate extrapolation and orfill in the gaps. No one sequencing will fit every learner, but in general, thelesson can be presented in increasng difficulty.

4. Reinforcement

Rewards and punishment should be selected and pacedappropriately.

Bruner’s theory - key points

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

• As skills learned they become automatic and becomeunits that can be combined to build up a new set ofskilled behaviours

• Learning not a gradual process

• Stresses role of language & interpersonalcommunication.

• Emphasizes need for active involvement by experts.

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

Children’s stages of development

Enactive Stage(from birth to about age 3)

Children perceive theenvironment throughactions they initiate.

They describe andexplain objects in termsof what a child can dowith them.

Iconic Stage

(from about age 3 to aboutage 8)

Children remember anduse information throughimagery.

Their visual memoryincreases and they thinkabout actions withoutexperiencing them.

Their decisions based onperception

Symbolic Stage

(from about age 8)

Chidren use symbols to represent peopleand things since theycan think and talk in abstract terms.

they can identify“defined” concepts.