
Implication of Bruner’s learning theory on teaching
Implication of Bruner’s learning theory
This post tries to describe the implication of Bruner’s learning theory. It starts by a brief presentation of his theory and ends up with specific implications on teaching practices.
A summary of Jerome Bruner’ theory
Jerome Bruner’s theory is very influential and has direct implications on the teaching practices. The main ideas of the theory can be summarized as follows:
- Learning is an active process. Learners select and transform information.
- Learners make appropriate decisions and postulate hypotheses and test their effectiveness.
- Learners use prior experience to fit new information into the pre-existing structures.
- Scaffolding is the process through which able peers or adults offer supports for learning. This assistance becomes gradually less frequent as it becomes unnecessary.
- Intellectual development includes three stages. The enactive stage which refers to learning through actions. The iconic stage refers to the learners’ use of pictures or models. The symbolic stage refers to the development of the ability to think in abstract terms.
- The notion of a spiral curriculum states that a curriculum should revisit basic ideas, building on them until the student grasps the full formal concept.
- Although extrinsic motivation may work in the short run, intrinsic motivation has more value
Implications on the learning process
Bruner’s learning theory has direct implications for teaching practices. Here are some of these implications:
- Instruction must be appropriate to the level of the learners. For example, being aware of the learners’ learning modes (enactive, iconic, symbolic) will help you plan and prepare appropriate materials for instruction according to the difficulty that matches learners’ level.
- The teachers must revisit the material to enhance knowledge. Building on pre-taught ideas to grasp the full formal concept is of paramount importance according to Bruner. Feel free to re-introduce vocabulary, grammar points, and other topics now and then to push the students to deeper comprehension and longer retention.
- The material must be presented in a sequence giving the learners the opportunity to:
a. acquire and construct knowledge,
b. transform and transfer his learning. - Students should be involved in using their prior experiences and structures to learn new knowledge.
- Help students to categorize new information to able to see similarities and differences between items.
- Teachers should assist learners in building their knowledge. This assistance should fade away as it becomes unnecessary.
- Teachers should provide feedback that is directed toward intrinsic motivation. Grades and competition are not helpful in the learning process. Bruner states that learners must “experience success and failure not as reward and punishment, but as information” (Bruner 1961, p. 26)
Read more about Bruner’s theory:
- The Process of Education
- Actual Minds, Possible Worlds (The Jerusalem-Harvard Lectures)
- The Culture of Education
- Toward a Theory of Instruction (Belknap Press)
- On Knowing: Essays for the Left Hand, Second Edition
- Relevance Of Education
Reference:
Bruner, J. S. (196 1). “The Act of Discovery.” Harvard Educational Review 31: 21-32.
clear implications
really helped me i appreciate i will be using this for the rest of my life.
brilliant ideas.
very realistic
thank you really benefited
awesome thnx a lot hev found smtn relevant for my assignment
Real beneficiary to us teachers
this page is really helpful esp if ua thinking abt apllicability of bruner’s theory to learning in schools.
I love this page,I found wat I wnt tanks.
thanks alot for publishing this page i have found exactly what i have been
looking for ……
This is very helpful for sure.
thanks a lot this is very helpful
Thank you so much this page made work easy for my assignment
This is relevant in all life situations.
It would be actual teaching. I like it .
very correct
thank you so much its helpful
Woool.this page made my day
was able to do my assignment with the help of the above information thank yu
this has really helped me, continue with your good works by publishing such good information.
Thanx a lot I got almost evrytn
Seen what I hoped for thanks worth for us teachers.
thanx a lot gt all the relevant information l was looking for .
Thank you a lot, for this page has really made my work easier at school.
Thanx fantastic ideas
Thanks so much the implications are very helpful
good work
thank you this helped me
at last I can write my assignment
I write my assignment too thnks
good work
that is good work, now i can write my assignment
thanks for the information
thank you so much the information was helpful
We’ll organized and rich too
Thank you, the information is rich and it ha helped me, please continue
Thanks
Very educative and powerful!Real teaching its so helpful!!!Thank you
This theory has really helped to make a good teacher. Brilliant ideas
I inspired by this theory, it has helped me a lot. Thank you
I like this theory it inspires. Thank you
Thanx so much really helped by this information
thank you so much its helpful
Finally i can write my assignment, brilliant ideas
will share with my wife she has an assignment on this
wonderful
wow! you have helped me save time this evening. God bless you. i just love this presentation
i need to read what bruner jerome said on the importance of a secondary teacher?
Thanks, so straightforward! Can now easily do my assignment!