PSYCHOLOGY OF TEACHING AND LEARNING ::BRUNER's THEORY OF INSTRUCTION

Learning is a lifelong process, it is an active process and it goes from womb to tomb. Every day in our life we learn something or the other. Experiences and mistakes make us learn better. In our previous blog we have learnt about the various theories in the learning process. Today we will encounter a very important aspect of learning process. I personally have followed it and have got beautiful results with my daughter. We can teach anything and everything to a child; it just depends upon the mode we choose for the process. This Constructivist theory by Bruner is a very important aspect which every teacher and parent must understand and know about for the betterment of their students and children.

Jerome Bruner and Education

Cognitive psychologist Jerome Bruner designed a concept attainment model to lead students learn concepts effectively by organising information. He felt the goal of education should be intellectual development, as opposed to rote memorization of facts. 

Bruner favours extracting the essential principles from a difficult task and apply them in familiar terms in simpler material the child already knows. His work has expanded our sensitivity to how much a child can learn at an early age.

 Bruner believes that the basic intellectual skills should be taught to the students at school, the aim of it being teaching the problem solving than problem finding. One of the goals of education is making people better thinkers. One can’t think in vacuum. So school instructions must be expanded in foundation making. He believed curriculum should foster the development of problem-solving skills through the processes of inquiry and discovery. He also advocated teaching by organizing concepts and learning by discovery.

Bruner believes in thought internalised language and syntactical rules of language rather than logic. He believed that subject matter should be represented in terms of the child's way of viewing the world.

 Cognitive development is conceived more in terms of internalization of technologies from the culture. Language is the most effective technology available.

 He stresses on the fact by more advanced concepts can be taught to the child at much earlier ages. Bruner’s motive is a theory of cognitive development goes hand in hand with the theory of instruction. That curriculum should be designed so that the mastery of skills leads to the mastery of still more powerful ones.

 He points out that the theory is prescriptive (rules for achieving knowledge or skills and provides techniques for measuring or evaluating outcomes). It is also normative (sets goals to be achieved and deals with conditions for meeting them). Finally, he believed culture should shape notions through which people organize their views of themselves and others and the world in which they live. 

Characteristics of Instructions:

I.Predisposition:

Learner’s personal factors like interest, readiness, motivation as well as cultural factors and teacher-student relationship are very much concerned.

 Natural learning is self-rewarding. It is very important to satisfy curiosity and competence since are intrinsic motives. Reciprocity is the final intrinsic motive relative to willingness of an individual to cooperate. 

Proper planning should be there from teachers’ side for the predisposition of learning.

II.Relating knowledge to learner:

Curriculum should be in a way that corresponds to the mode of representation at which students are functioning. It should involve structuring subject matter in three ways:

1. Enactive mode.

2. Iconic mode.

3. Symbolic mode.

A theory of instruction should specify the ways in which a body of knowledge should be structured so that it can be more readily grasped by the learner.

1. Enactive Mode:

It is learning through actions. It is representing ideas through actions. Child defines the events and objects in terms of action. E.g. like learning to ride a bike. It is easier to mime or pretend a situation because these events are more or less, muscle memories. It focuses on process than on the product.

2. Iconic Mode:

It is learning based on representation through visual and perceptual means. A child has a highly concrete imagery. A mental map that permits to follow a route from where we are, to where we are going. The child can select and organise his perception and work with ‘pictures’ which stand for perceptual events.

3. Symbolic Mode:

Children develop abstract images because they are able to translate experience into language and use language as an instrument of thinking. E.g. verbalisation of the procedure of any experiment or phenomenon observed. The most central system of symbolic activity is language. Examples of symbols include maps, plans, roads and designs etc. 

Teacher’s competence lies in how she/he relates knowledge to learners’ cognitive capacities.

III.Sequence:

There are certain orders of representing material and ideas which are more likely to lead students to basic ideas or principles. Instruction involves guiding learners through a series of statements and restatements in a subject or field of knowledge; to enhance learning.

 An optimum sequence is one which progresses from: 

E.g. flowcharts can teach a lot of information than a long list of unrelated material.

IV.Reinforcement:

It refers to knowledge of results and feedback on the effects of one’s action. Instruction should specify the nature and pacing of rewards and punishments in the process of learning and teaching.

Bruner recommends gradual replacement of extrinsic rewards by intrinsic rewards and replacement of immediate rewards by deferred awards. Its usefulness depends on timing, to whom and where it is given or received. 

Bruner attaches more importance to centrality of language in the development of intelligence. He also thinks of cultural experiences as more important in determining and shaping growth.

 Implications on the learning process:

Bruner’s learning theory has direct implications on the teaching practices which include:

1. Instruction must be appropriate to the level of the learners. For example, being aware of the learners’ learning modes (enactive, iconic and symbolic) will help teacher to plan and prepare appropriate materials for instruction. This will help in addressing the difficult aspects.

2. The teachers must revisit material to enhance knowledge. Building on pre-taught ideas to grasp the full formal concept is of paramount importance according to Bruner. Topics connected are learnt quicker and grasped easily by the children due to familiarity.

3. Material must be presented in a sequence giving the learners the opportunity to acquire and construct knowledge, transform and transfer his/her learning.

4. Students should be involved in using their prior experiences and structures to learn new knowledge. Teacher should help students to categorize new information in order to able to see similarities and differences between topics.

5. Teachers should assist learners in building their knowledge.

6. Teachers should provide feedback that is directed towards 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”.