Jerome Bruner
For N515- by Leslie Wagle
Life
Jerome Bruner was born in New York City and
educated at Duke University and Harvard. His career
has been long and productive, including leadership
roles in several landmark projects that had
widespread influence on education practices. He
began studying the cognitive development of children
in the 1940’s and became interested in schooling in
the USA in the 1950’s. In the 1960’s he suggested
that intellectual ability developed in stages though
stepped changes in how the mind is used. In the
1980’s he began to believe that cultural influences
affect learning psychology.
Key Concepts
•
•
Bruner believed that detailed material is remembered
by the use of simplified ways of representing it. He
deplored the educational psychology dominant in
America before 1940, which confused "skills" with
"understanding." Instead, Bruner placed "structure"
at the heart of education: give a child a sense of the
structure of what he is being taught and he will learn
the information for himself.
To instruct someone is not a
matter of just getting things
into his mind, but teaching him
to participate in the process of
gaining knowledge.”
Effect on American Education
Jerome Bruner is now widely regarded as
one of the most influential twentieth century
writers and thinkers to apply principles of
psychology to modern education and
curriculum theory. Bruner claimed that any
subject can be taught effectively in some form
to any child at any stage of development. A
curriculum should revisit basic ideas
repeatedly, building on them until the student
has grasped the general picture in terms of
the relationships between things encountered
earlier and later.
His main theories
Jerome Bruner was among the first to
realize that ("thinking") depends on
placing an event or situation in the
appropriate category. Bruner also realized that
categories are not "discovered" but "invented". They
do not exist in the environment: they are construed
by the human mind. Thus what matters is really the
classifying information into a new category, or which
into some existing category.
Three principles of his overall thinking are readiness,
structure and sequence, and extrapolation.
Readiness
•
Instruction must be concerned with the
experiences and contexts that make the
student willing and able to learn.
• So, a teacher might first excite interest by filling a
glass with water and asking students how many
pennies they think can be put into the jar without water
spilling out. Their curiosity would be aroused when the
pennies greatly exceed their estimates. This then
leads to an exploration of many variables and basic
principles they would find perplexing if offered only in
theory.
Structure
•
•
Instruction must be structured so that it can
be easily grasped by the student.
Bruner demonstrated that any domain of
knowledge, or problem or concept, can be
represented in some way (including images
or graphics) simple enough that any particular
learner can understand it in a recognizable
form.
Sequence
•
Instruction should lead the learner through
the content in order to increase the student’s
ability to grasp, transform, and transfer what
is learned. In general, sequencing should
move from hands-on concrete experiences,
to iconic (visual) then to symbolic.
Extrapolation
• Instruction should be designed to facilitate filling in
the gaps (going beyond the information given).
• The nature and pacing of instruction should move
away from external rewards, such as a teacher’s
praise, toward the intrinsic rewards inherent in
solving problems or understanding concepts. The
teacher can provide a vital link to the learner in
helping the learner develop techniques for obtaining
feedback on his or her own.
Application of the Theories
Bruner introduced
the doctrine of the
spiral curriculum, that
all topics -in some
form -must be
introduced at an early
age, but cannot be
exhausted at any
age, and thus must
be returned to in
increasing depth.
The Spiral
In order for a student to develop from simple to more
complex lessons, certain basic knowledge and skills
must first be mastered. This provides linkages between
each lesson as student spirals upwards in a course of a
study. As new knowledge and skills are introduced, they
reinforce what is already learned and become related to
previously learned information. What the student
gradually achieves is a rich breadth and depth of
information that is not normally developed when each
topic is discrete and disconnected from each other.
Legacy
•
•
A constant theme in Bruner’s work is that education is
a process of discovery. Students are encouraged to
discover facts and relationships for themselves and
continually build on what they already know. This has
greatly influenced teaching styles, such as where the
teacher does not just talk about dinosaurs, but has
the students construct models of dinosaurs, watch a
film about them, and then discuss imaginary
encounters with them, etc.
He also was an influence on the Xerox researchers in
their efforts to create the graphic user interface (GUI).
Latest Interests
Bruner has begun to promote the insight that “we
construct and we reconstruct our world, not just with
bricks and mortar, but by creating and re-creating the
meaning of different things.” This process takes place
largely through social interaction, where the role of
culture is key to shaping the concept we have of
ourselves and our powers.
How Bruner relates to Music
In 1991 Bruner published an article entitled “The narrative
Construction of Reality” in which he argued that the mind
structures its sense of reality through symbolic systems. The
narrative idea has been used by one music educator.
•
The following material is taken from an article
in Piano Pedagogy Forum by Ivan Frazier
http://www.music.sc.edu/ea/
keyboard/PPF/4.2/4.2PPFpp.html
Frazier explains an experience where he described a piece
by Bach in narrative rather than technical terms.
“I might have described the piece this way:
In three-eight meter the subject begins with
the right hand in the tonic key followed by
its imitation by the left hand in the dominant, as the right
hand takes the countersubject over from the left hand. Then
the right hand repeats the subject in D-sharp minor, the
subdominant of the relative minor. Continuing the process
the left hand imitates the subject etc., etc., etc.”
But, Frazier didn’t think it that would provoke much
excitement or interest in the piece, so during his lecture
“I said it was lively and frolicsome due its three-eight meter
and that the left hand chases the right through a maze of
related major and minor keys.”
“Narrative thinking and language like that can awaken
curiosity and fascination, which can generate the energy
needed to find out what it means that the left hand chases
the right, and to explore that maze of related keys to see
where it leads with all its turns and cadences along the
way. Students may then find the motivation to do the hard
work needed for objective analysis and diligent practice.”
One student assigned characters, as in a
drama, to all the themes in the final rondo of a
Mozart Sonata, and made a simple visual
representation of each character. Her "map"
acted as an operatic narrative and a useful
tool for secure memorization of the movement.
Ivan Frazier has had success with asking his piano
students to relate to a problem by finding a narrative for it.
He finds that they often improve their playing when he asks
them to find a more global concept.
 One student described pedaling problems as
“It sounds like a change from 'stereo' to 'mono’”
 Another one said that ritenuto is when you "hit traffic."
Frazier concludes: “I have found myself increasingly alert to
statements from, and incidents with students that show
evidence of narrative thinking, and have started a diary to
collect them.”
In closing….
Jerome Bruner, whose career spans more than 60 years, was
not happy with the early use of computers (for drill and
practice) in schools. Although he is happy with later efforts to
stimulate intuitive and analytical thinking, Bruner still thinks
technology has not explored the spiral curriculum concept in
its full potential to create knowledge students can build on.
http://edtech2.boisestate.edu/wagnerk/edtech580/jerome.htm
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References
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-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J
erome_Bruner