JEROME BRUNER’S THEORY OF DISCOVERY LEARNING & REPRESENTATION

This article explores Jerome Bruner’s theory of development, his three modes of representation, and his beliefs on learning, language, and discovery. It will also compare Bruner’s views of learning with Jean Piaget’s and Lev Vygotsky’s views.

 

 

JEROME BRUNER AND EDUCATION

Cognitive psychologist Jerome Bruner felt the goal of education should be intellectual development, as opposed to the rote memorization of facts. Bruner held the following beliefs regarding learning and education:

• He believed curriculum should foster the development of problem-solving skills through the processes of inquiry and discovery.
• He believed that subject matter should be represented in terms of the child’s way of viewing the world.
• That curriculum should be designed so that the mastery of skills leads to the mastery of still more powerful ones.
• He also advocated teaching by organizing concepts and learning by discovery.
• Finally, he believed culture should shape notions through which people organize their views of themselves and others and the world in which they live.

BRUNER’S THREE STAGES OF REPRESENTATION

Modes of representation are the way in which information or knowledge are stored and encoded in memory.

Rather than neat age related stages, the modes of representation are integrated and only loosely sequential as they “translate” into each other. The aim of education, according to Bruner, should be to create autonomous learners (i.e., learning to learn). In his research on the cognitive development of children (1966), Jerôme Bruner proposed three modes of representation:

1. Enactive stage

This is the first stage which appears first between 0 and 1 year of child’s life. It involves encoding action based information and storing it in our memory. For instance, in the form of movement as a muscle memory, a baby might remember the action of shaking a rattle. For example, a baby shakes a rattle and hears a noise. 

The baby has directly manipulated the rattle and the outcome was a pleasurable sound. In the future, the baby may shake his hand, even if there is no rattle, expecting his hand to produce the rattling sounds. The baby does not have an internal representation of the rattle and, therefore, does not understand that it needs the rattle in order to produce the sound.

The child represents past events through motor responses, i.e. an infant will “shake a rattle” which has just been removed or dropped, as if the movements themselves are expected to produce the accustomed sound. And this is not just limited to children.

Many adults can perform a variety of motor tasks (typing, sewing a shirt, operating a lawn mower) that they would find difficult to describe in iconic (picture) or symbolic (word) form.

2. Iconic stage

This is the second stage developing in the first year of life and last up to 6 years. In this representational stage, information is stored visually in the form of images (a mental picture in the mind’s eye). This stage involves an internal representation of external objects visually in the form of a mental image or icon. 

For example, a child drawing an image of a tree or thinking of an image of a tree would be representative of this stage.For some, this is conscious; others say they do not experience it. This may explain why, when we are learning a new subject, it is often helpful to have diagrams or illustrations to accompany verbal information.

3. Symbolic stage

This develops last, from the age of seven and goes on through entire life. This is where information is stored in the form of a code or symbol, such as language. This is the most adaptable form of representation, for actions and images have a fixed relation to that which they represent. Dog is a symbolic representation of a single class.

Symbols are flexible in that they can be manipulated, ordered, classified etc., so the user is not constrained by actions or images. In the symbolic stage, knowledge is stored primarily as words, mathematical symbols, or in other symbol systems.

Bruner believed that all learning occurs through the stages we just discussed. Bruner also believed that learning should begin with the direct manipulation of objects. For example, in math education, Bruner promoted the use of algebra tiles, coins, and other items that could be manipulated.

After a learner has the opportunity to directly manipulate the objects, they should be encouraged to construct visual representations, such as drawing a shape or a diagram.

Finally, a learner understands the symbols associated with what they represent. For example, a student in math understands that the plus sign ( + ) means to add two numbers together and the minus sign ( – ) means to subtract.

DISCOVERY LEARNING

The concept of discovery learning implies that a learner constructs his or her own knowledge for themselves by discovering as opposed to being told about something.

According to Bruner, the teacher should facilitate the learning process by developing lessons that provide the learner with information they need without organising it for them. This idea of discovery learning is often referred to as constructivism, which emphasises the active role of the learner in building understanding and making sense of information.

THE IMPORTANCE OF LANGUAGE

Language is important for the increased ability to deal with abstract concepts. Bruner argues that language can code stimuli and free an individual from the constraints of dealing only with appearances, to provide a more complex yet flexible cognition.

The use of words can aid the development of the concepts they represent and can remove the constraints of the “here and now”concept. Basically, he sees the infant as an intelligent and active problem solver from birth, with intellectual abilities basically similar to those of the mature adult.

EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS OF BRUNER’S THEORY

In the views of Bruner (1961), the purpose of education is not to impart knowledge, but instead to facilitate a child’s thinking and problem-solving skills which can then be transferred to a range of situations. Specifically, education should also develop symbolic thinking in children.

The main premise of Bruner’s text, The Process of Education, which was published In 1960. was that students are active learners who construct their own knowledge. He opposed Piaget’s notion of readiness by arguing that schools waste time trying to match the complexity of subject material to a child’s cognitive stage of development. This was meant to say that students are held back by teachers as certain topics are deemed too difficult to understand and must be taught when the teacher believes the child has reached the appropriate state of cognitive maturity.

Bruner (1960) adopts a different view and believes a child (of any age) is capable of understanding complex information: “We begin with the hypothesis that any subject can be taught effectively in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development” (p. 33). He further explained how this was possible through the concept of the spiral curriculum. 

This involved information being structured so that complex ideas can be taught at a simplified level first, and then re-visited at more complex levels later on. Therefore, subjects would be taught at levels of gradually increasing difficultly (hence the spiral analogy). Ideally, teaching his way should lead to children being able to solve problems by themselves.

Bruner (1961) proposes that learners’ construct their own knowledge and do this by organising and categorising information using a coding system. Bruner believed that the most effective way to develop a coding system is to discover it rather than being told it by the teacher. The concept of discovery learning implies that students construct their own knowledge for themselves (also known as a constructivist approach).

The role of the teacher should not be to teach information by rote learning, but instead to facilitate the learning process. This means that a good teacher will design lessons that help student discover the relationship between bits of information. To do this a teacher must give students the information they need, but without organising for them. The use of the spiral curriculum can aid the process of discovery learning.

In order for the Bruner’s recommended approach to be possible, the following must be taken care of:

• Teachers need to be aware of the developmental state of each of the children in their care, and should provide scaffolding that is appropriate, mainly when dealing with more complex items requiring more support.
• To assure the process is made possible, teachers can improvise and provide scaffolding through other support, including the use of other adults such as teaching assistants (para-educators) parent helpers, or more knowledgeable other children within the classroom.
• As children gain in confidence and competence in a particular area, teachers might place them in groups to extend each other’s learning further. It is also important that teachers recognise when a child is at the point where they begin to learn independently, and decisions can be made to set them free from the scaffolding.

BRUNER VS. PIAGET

Bruner was not the only cognitive psychologist with ideas about learning. Jean Piaget and Bruner held common beliefs about learning, but disagreed on several points.

Bruner and Piaget agreed that children are born ready to learn. They both thought that children have a natural curiosity. They also both agreed that children are active learners and that cognitive development entails the use of symbols.

Nevertheless, Bruner disagreed with Piaget on the following:

Bruner’s constructivist theory suggests it is effective when faced with new material to follow a progression from enactive through iconic to symbolic representation; this holds true even for adult learners. A true instructional designer, Bruner’s work also suggests that a learner even of a very young age is capable of learning any material so long as the instruction is organised appropriately, in sharp contrast to the beliefs of Piaget and other stage theorists.

Bruner states that what determines the level of intellectual development is the extent to which the child has been given appropriate instruction together with practice or experience. So – the right way of presentation and the right explanation will enable a child to grasp a concept usually only understood by an adult. The points of comparison between Piaget and Bruner in terms of cognitive development, can be summarised in the following table.

Bruner agrees with Piaget	Bruner disagrees with Piaget
1.      Children are pre-adapted to learning	1.      Development is a continuous process , not a series of stages
2.      Children have a natural curiosity	2.      The development of language is a cause not a consequence of cognitive development
3.      Children’s cognitive structures develop over time	3.      You can speed-up cognitive development. You don’t have to wait for the child to be ready
4.      Children are active participants in the learning process	4.      The involvement of adults and more knowledgeable peers makes a big difference
5.      Cognitive development entails the acquisition of symbols	5.      Symbolic thought does not replace earlier modes of representation

Table 6.1: Bruner and Piaget compared

BRUNER AND VYGOTSKY

Both Bruner and Vygotsky emphasise a child’s environment, especially the social environment, more than Piaget did. Both agree that adults should play an active role in assisting the child’s learning.

Bruner, like Vygotsky, emphasised the social nature of learning, citing that other people should help a child develop skills through the process of scaffolding. Bruner’s theory of scaffolding emerged around 1976 as a part of social constructivist theory, and was particularly influenced by the work of Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky. Vygotsky argued that we learn best in a social environment, where we construct meaning through interaction with others. His Zone of Proximal Development theory, where we can learn more in the presence of a knowledgeable other person, became the template for Bruner’s model.

The concept of scaffolding is very similar to Vygotsky’s notion of the zone of proximal development, and it is not uncommon for the terms to be used interchangeably. Scaffolding involves helpful, structured interaction between an adult and a child with the aim of helping the child achieve a specific goal. Scaffolding, in his words, “consists of the steps taken to reduce the degrees of freedom in carrying out some task so that the child can concentrate on the difficult skill s/he is in the process of acquiring” (Bruner, 1978, p. 19).

Bruner believed that when children start to learn new concepts, they need help from teachers and other adults in the form of active support. To begin with, they are dependent on their adult support, but as they become more independent in their thinking and acquire new skills and knowledge, the support can be gradually faded. This form of structured interaction between the child and the adult is reminiscent of the scaffolding that supports the construction of a building. It is gradually dismantled as the work is completed. According to Bruner’s theory scaffolding can be applied across all sectors, for all ages and for all topics of learning.

References

Bruner, J. S. (1957). Going beyond the information given. New York: Norton.

Bruner, J. S. (1960). The Process of education. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Bruner, J. S. (1961). The act of discovery. Harvard Educational Review, 31, 21-32.

Bruner, J. S. (1966). Toward a theory of instruction, Cambridge, Mass.: Belkapp Press.

Bruner, J. S. (1973). The relevance of education. New York: Norton.

Bruner, J. S. (1978). The role of dialogue in language acquisition. In A. Sinclair, R., J. Jarvelle, and W. J.M. Levelt (eds.) The Child’s Concept of Language. New York: Springer-Verlag.

Wood, D. J., Bruner, J. S., & Ross, G. (1976). The role of tutoring in problem-solving. Journal of Child Psychiatry and Psychology, 17(2), 89-100.  https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.1976.tb00381.x