Jerome+Bruner

Jerome Seymour Bruner is an American psychologist and a constructivist. He is one best known and influential psychologist in the twentieth century (Jerome Bruner, p.1). He was born on October 1, 1915 in New York City (Jerome Bruner, p.2). Bruner's main ideas are based on categorization, learning, cognitive growth. In 1960's, Jerome Bruner developed a theory of cognitive growth and that intellectual ability developed in stages through changes in how the mind is used. Bruner influenced Lev Vygotsky by his idea of thinking and also influenced teachers and scholars (Jerome Bruner, p.3). Bruner's report on the “The Process of Education” was a powerful stimulus to the curriculum reform movement. How Bruner's ideas and theories are applied to teaching and learning with technology. He argued that any subject could be taught to any child at any stage of development (Educational Theory, 2009, p.1). Bruner also studied perception in children and he believed that cognitive growth occurs and students move through three stages of learning, enactive, iconic, and symbolic. In the first stage of enactive, students begin to develop understanding through active manipulation. In the second stage of iconic, students are capable of making mental images of the material and would no longer need to manipulate them. For the last stage of symbolic, students can use abstract ideas to represent the world. Bruner suggested that providing assistance and guidance throughout the three stage will help students build their understanding and allows them to become independent learners (Jerome Bruner, 2009, p.2). In his theoretical framework is that learning is an active process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based upon their current and past knowledge (Jerome Bruner, 2009, p. 3). His theory of cognitive development focuses on the idea of active transmission through discovery learning. Discovery learning is an inquiry based constructivist learning theory that takes place in problem solving where the learner draws his or her own past experience and knowledge to discover facts. Bruner's idea of teaching was to facilitate learning experiences and stimulate critical thinking skills. He also states that educators should be knowledgeable about the theories. As for the curriculum, there must be a process of discovery where people examine and develop ideas through collaborations (Educational Theory, 2009, p.7). His theory of instruction transformed the education's role in the classroom, the student's role in learning, and the curriculum worker's role in development. The teachers became subject matter knowledge, the students becomes child-scientists and the curriculum workers took their seats as psychologists or other discipline scholars (Marshall, Sears, Allen, Roberts and Schubert, 2007, p.51).