Overview:

A major theme in the theoretical framework of Bruner is 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 hypotheses, and makes decisions, relying on a cognitive structure to do so.

Cognitive structure (i.e., schema, mental models) provides meaning and organization to experiences and allows the individual to "go beyond the information given".

Assumptions:

Bruner (1966) states that a theory of instruction should address four major aspects:

(1) predisposition towards learning

(2) the ways in which a body of knowledge can be structured so that it can be most readily grasped by the learner

(3) 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.

Practice:

The instructor should encourage students to discover principles by themselves.

The instructor and student should engage in an active dialog (i.e., Socratic learning, inquiry approach).

Curriculum should be organized in a spiral manner so that the student continually builds upon what s/he has already learned.

The task of the instructor is to translate information to be learned into a format appropriate to the learner's current state of understanding. (Egs. graphic organizers)

Parallel: Ausubel's Subsumption Theory shares many of the same ideas, such as the organizational strength of cognitive structures. Thus, he recommends the use of advanced organizers to prepare students to receive what they will be given by instructors. The major difference is that he sees subsumption as the reorganization of existing cognitive structures rather than the development of new cognitive structures, as suggested by the constructivists.

Example:

This example is taken from Bruner (1973):

"The concept of prime numbers appears to be more readily grasped when the child, through construction, discovers that certain handfuls of beans cannot be laid out in completed rows and columns. Such quantities have either to be laid out in a single file or in an incomplete row-column design in which there is always one extra or one too few to fill the pattern. These patterns, the child learns, happen to be called prime. It is easy for the child to go from this step to the recognition that a multiple table , so called, is a record sheet of quantities in completed mutiple rows and columns. Here is factoring, multiplication and primes in a construction that can be visualized."

Review of Principles:

1. Instruction must be concerned with the experiences and contexts that make the student willing and able to learn (readiness).

2. Instruction must be structured so that it can be easily grasped by the student (spiral organization).

3. Instruction should be designed to facilitate extrapolation and or fill in the gaps (going beyond the information given) by stimulating cognitive skills required for application.

References:

(Adapted from:) Kearsley, Greg. "Theory in Practice Database". George Washington University Online. <http://gwis.circ.gwu.edu/~tip/bruner.html>
Bruner, J. (1960). The Process of Education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bruner, J. (1966). Toward a Theory of Instruction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bruner, J. (1973). Going Beyond the Information Given. New York: Norton.
Bruner, J. (1983). Child's Talk: Learning to Use Language. New York: Norton.
Bruner, J. (1986). Actual Minds, Possible Worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of Meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bruner, J., Goodnow, J., & Austin, A. (1956). A Study of Thinking. New York: Wiley.

For further study, Howard Gardner authored an article on Bruner in Fifty Modern Thinkers on Education, by Joy A. Palmer, ed. (Routledge, 2001).

More webpages on Constructivism are available at Educator's Reference Desk.

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