ED 4134 Assessment 1- Bruner

Jerome Bruner

Jerome S. Bruner is an American psychologist who has made a significant contribution to cognitive psychology and childhood learning theory. Bruner’s ideologies are concerned with categorization, that is, that people mentally process and categorise the world in terms of its similarities and diversity. (Wikipedia, 2007)

Bruner also suggests there are two primary modes of thought:
1. Narrative thinking (sequential, action-orientated, detail-driven thought)
2. Paradigmatic thinking (systematic and categorical cognition)
(Wikipedia, 2007)

In addition to these thoughts, Bruner asserts that there are three modes of human development, through which we correspond to and manage our experience of the world:
3. Enactive(action-based)
4. Iconic (image-based), and
5. Symbolic (language-based) (Hevern, V. W. 2004)

In Contrast, to Piaget who perceived that each mode is associated to a specific stage of childhood development, Bruner saw each mode central throughout each development phase. I concur with Bruner’s ideology that human development is a process of personal discovery, which is then represented enactively, iconically or symbolically throughout the various development phases. Hollyman (2007) http://au.geocities.com/vanunoo/Humannature/bruner.html

As a teacher, I highly value Bruner’s ideas as it encourages me to see the importance of carefully organising my teaching approach to effectively engage the students to want to develop their knowledge by personal discovery. Furthermore, I also believe that Bruner's theory regarding the Spiral curriculum is important and relevant today in helping students reinforce their understanding and make suitable connections between the knowledge they learn and aquire.

References

Wikipedia (2007), Jerome Bruner, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome_Bruner, accessed 11th April

Hevern, V. W. (2004) Key theorists: Jerome S. Bruner. Narrative psychology: Internet and resource guide, http://web.lemoyne.edu/~hevern/nr-theorists/bruner_jerome_s.html, accessed 11th April

Hollyman (2007), Jerome Bruner; A web overview, http://au.geocities.com/vanunoo/Humannature/bruner.html, accessed 11th April