2. Jerome Bruner:
• Born in New York City on October 1, 1915
• Education
-BA, Duke University (1937)
-MA, Harvard University (1939)
-Ph.D. Harvard University (1941)
• Publication
- The culture of education
- The process of education
• Spiral curriculum
• One of the founding fathers of constructivist
theory
3. Discovery Learning Theory
An approach to instruction through which
students interact with their environment
By exploring and manipulating objects,
wrestling with questions and controversies, or
performing experiments
Students discover knowledge, developing their
own understanding.
4. PRINCIPLE OF J BRUNER’S
THEORY
• Readiness
• Spiral organisation
• going beyond the information given
5. Cognitive Development
Like piaget, Bruner believed in 3 stages of
instruction based on development
• Enactive Stage (birth to age 3)
• Iconic Stage (age 3 to 8)
• Symbolic (from age 8)
Each mode is dominant at different phases of
development but all are present accessible
6. Enactive Stage
From birth to about age 3.
Children need to experience the concrete.
Usually involves a motor response.
Children use actions to manipulate objects.
Objects are defined by what they can do with
them.
Showing and modelling is important versus
telling at this stage
7. Iconic Stage
From about age 3 to about age 8
Children are able to think about things that are
not physically present
Images are primarily visual or based in another
sense
Ex. They can do math problems in their head.
8. Symbolic Representation Stage
This stage occurs at about age 7
Bruner believes that in this stage, children are
able to transform action and image into a
symbolic system to encode knowledge
The “symbols” are primarily linguistic and
mathematical
Symbolic Representation is a major tool in
reflective thinking
9. Spiral curriculum
• Learner built on past experience
• Students interact with the environment
• Discovers fact and relationship their own
• Student create own construct of knowledge
through narrative
11. Advantages
• Autonomous, self directed and responsible.
• Enhances the development of intellectual
capacities and problem solving.
• Enhances motivation, interest and satisfaction
• Minimizes verbal learning.
• Give more time for assimilate and accumulate
information.
12. Disadvantages
• More time
• Difficulties to slow learners
• Teachers are not properly trained
• Expected benefits don't show up in regular
achievement test
13. Summary
• Bruner believed that students learn best through
discovery and a spiralled curriculum.
• He said that knowing is a process rather than the
accumulated knowledge as acquired in textbooks
• Bruner believed that we should instruct students
to use the tools, instruments, and technologies
available to them to unlock their potential
Previous Question
What are the special features of guided discovery
learning? How does it benefit the learning
process in children? 5mark ( April 2014)
14. References And Links
• Teaching science ( Dr. Mariamma Mathew)
• Bruner’s Theory
http://evolution.massey.ac.nz/assign2/BP/Bruner.html
• Teaching ( Dr.shivarajan) science
