In the 1960s, the American psychologist and pedagogue Jerome Bruner developed a constructivist learning theory, known as discovery learning. The main characteristic of this theory is that it encourages the student to acquire knowledge by themselves. Bruner believes that students should learn through guided discovery that occurs during exploration motivated by curiosity.
Therefore, the teacher’s job is not to explain finished content, with a very clear beginning and end, but rather he must provide the appropriate material to stimulate his students through strategies of observation, comparison, and analysis of similarities and differences. In this Psychology-Online article, we will talk about the Bruner’s learning theories.
Jerome Bruner
Jerome Bruner was a psychologist American who lived from 1915 to 2016. Bruner, a doctor in psychology from Harvard University, was a researcher and professor. He carried out innovative and interesting work and studies. In fact, his book The Education Process It had a great impact on the way many teachers thought and worked.
Based on his research on teaching and learning, Jerome Bruner made important contributions to cognitive psychology and learning theories. His objective was to change the traditional teaching methodology.
In the following article you will find more information about the.
Bruner’s theory
Traditionally, the teacher was considered the central figure of learning and almost only rote learning was valued. Something Bruner disagreed with and strove to change. After much research about learning, J.Bruner formulated his own theory of learning.
In the Bruner’s theory The student is conceived as the protagonist, he is no longer a container where the teacher deposits knowledge, but rather he is the builder of his own learning. Considering learning an active process. The student has mental schemes and when he interacts with reality he adds new information in the categories already learned or in new categories.
Bruner’s theory considers that the student’s previous mental structure is one of the factors that determines the learning of new information. Since to acquire new information it must be contextualized.
Below we will look at each of the parts of Bruner’s theory in depth.
Bruner and discovery learning
Discovery learning is Bruner’s best-known theory. He Learning by discovery It is a learning method in which the student discovers new content in an inductive way.
The goal of discovery learning is for students to discover how things work in a certain way. active and constructive. Its focus is aimed at promoting capacities and skills for verbal and written expression, imagination, mental representation, problem solving and mental flexibility.
Within the proposal developed by Jerome Bruner, it is stated that learning should not be limited to a mechanical memorization of information or procedures, but should lead the student to the development of his or her ability to solve problems and think about the situation to which he or she is assigned. faces. The school must lead to the discovery of new ways to solve old problems and the resolution of new problems in accordance with the current characteristics of society.
Some pedagogical implications of Bruner’s theory, lead the teacher to consider elements such as student attitude, compatibility, motivation, practice of skills and use of information in problem solving, and the ability to manage and use the flow of information. in solving problems.
In Bruner’s theory of intellectual development, therefore, the student’s ability to assimilate and memorize what has been learned and, subsequently, to transfer that learning to other circumstances of his life, carried out from his own world view, has great significance. .
The role of the tutor in intellectual development
In the theory of discovery learning, Bruner points out the importance of a systematic and permanent interaction between the student and the teacher or tutor, as well as with their peers, to facilitate intellectual development. This must be a relationship of mutual respect, communication, dialogue and willingness for the teaching-learning process.
Jerome Bruner: theory of mental representation systems
Mental representation: It is a system or set of rules through which what has been experienced in different events can be preserved.
- Idle: know something through action.
- Iconic: through a drawing or an image.
- Symbolic: symbols are used, like language.
Development involves mastery of these three forms of representation and their partial translation from one system to another. These must be instilled both in school and in daily life.
Bruner’s theory of instruction
For Bruner, education is the global result of the family, community, cultural influences and academic training that a certain human group offers its members. For its part, instruction consists of leading the learner through a sequence of definitions and redefinitions about a problem or body of knowledge that increases their ability to capture, transform and transfer what they have learned.
Characteristics of this theory: It is prescriptive, that is defines rules and procedures to acquire knowledge and skills. Furthermore, it provides the criteria for evaluating teaching or learning. Within this part, it aims for the instruction to be flexible and dynamic.
Aspects to be considered
- The activation. The first step to meaningful learning is to get the student motivated. According to Bruner, this depends largely on the activation that the educator manages to awaken in his students, through careful planning, with originality, imagination, with integration of new information with that already known, based on the student’s prior knowledge and the ability to modify the strategy when required.
- The maintenance. It is not enough to activate the student at the beginning of the lesson, his interest must be maintained throughout the entire study session.
- The direction. Learning must follow a certain sequence depending on the complexity of the concepts involved. To do this, the educator must be familiar with the underlying theory and be able to relate it to practical situations.
Its constituent elements
- Specification of the experiences that make an individual predisposed toward learning.
- Specification of the appropriate structure of a body of knowledge.
- Point out the most effective consequences in which the materials to be learned should be presented.
- The learning pace of each student.
- Degree of rewards, rewards and punishments.
- Bruner’s explanations of learning
Learning, for Bruner, is developing the ability to and think about a situation one faces. To learn something is to know that something.
Education gives us the responsibility of teaching students to think and discover ways to solve old problems with new methods, as well as finding solutions to new problems for which old formulas are not adequate. The student must be helped to be creative, to innovate, to face emergencies and unforeseen events.
Pedagogical implications of Bruner’s discovery method
Thanks to Bruner’s learning theories, we can propose a new psychopedagogical method. This method involves creating a special environment in the classroom that is favorable considering the following elements:
- The student’s attitude: promote active discussion, pose problems of interest, illustrate analyzed situations, point out essential points in a reading done or try to relate theoretical facts with practical issues.
- Compatibility: New knowledge must be compatible with the knowledge that the student already possesses, otherwise its adequate understanding and assimilation would not be possible.
- The motivation: That the student gets to feel the excitement of discovery.
- The practice of skills and the use of information in problem solving: Discovery learning requires a total integration of theory with practice. Therefore, the educator must create concrete situations in which students can make an adequate application of the theoretical concepts acquired.
- Recipe App: True integration between theory and practice, and not a simple repetition of a recipe that will only be useful on some occasions.
- The importance of clarity when teaching a concept: through a selection of content, to avoid providing too many ideas that can cause confusion.
Benefits of discovery learning
Supporters of Bruner’s learning theories see the following benefits in discovery learning:
- It serves to overcome the limitations of traditional learning or mechanistic.
- It encourages students to think for themselves, raise hypotheses and try to confirm them in a systematic way.
- Enhance strategies metacognitivethat is, you learn how to learn.
- and security.
- It enhances the creative problem solving.
It is especially useful for learning foreign languages, since students have a very active role, encouraging the use of techniques to analyze language, deduce how rules work and learn from mistakes.
Representation modes
- Mitigating representation: Before two years, the understanding of things, through actions with external experience.
- Iconic representation: two years to six years, explain matters, by various feelings, by image or special scheme.
- Symbolic representation: After six years, he understands the environment through language, an abstract symbol. In conclusion, Bruner considers, cognitive development is through actions, images, languages and abstract symbols. He insists on stages, integrative and continuity and also effected by culture.
Bruner’s Scaffolding Theory
Jerome Bruner also developed an interesting theory about a concept he developed himself: Scaffolding. This is defined as a guided discovery method where two main figures are distinguished: the educator or teacher and the student. Bruner’s scaffolding theory proposes a method where the teacher offers knowledge in a natural way, without forcing educational sessions. In this way, active learning is encouraged.
Discovery learning: examples and elements
Bruner focused on human beings as actively choose, preserve and transform knowledgecan transcend concrete information and obtain abstract understanding.
Cognitive structure: Bruner considers that knowledge has structure,…