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JEROME BRUNER’S THREE – TIERED MODEL OF LEARNING 111111111

Who is Jerome Bruner?

Jerome Seymour “Jerry” Bruner was born on October 1, 1915, in New York City. He began his academic
career as psychology professor at Harvard University; he ended it as University Professor Emeritus at
New York University (NYU) Law School. On June 5, 2016, Bruner died in his Greenwich Village loft at age
100. He leaves behind his beloved partner Eleanor Fox, who was also his distinguished colleague at NYU
Law School; his son Whitley; his daughter Jenny; and three grandchildren

Jerry Bruner was born blind. Cataract operations restored his sight at age 2. He once said that, during his
2 years of blindness, he had constructed a visual world in his mind. Those early experiences may help
explain why, in the 1940s and ’50s, he developed the groundbreaking theory that perception is
controlled by the mind as well as by the senses.

American psychologist and educator who developed theories on perception, learning, memory (long
term memory/Short term memory), Long-term memory has a seemingly unlimited capacity that lasts
years, short-term memory is relatively brief and limited. Example: Examples of long term memory
include recollection of an important day in the distant past (early birthday, graduation, wedding, etc),
short term memory include where you parked your car this morning, what you had for lunch yesterday,
and remembering details from a book that you read a few days ago.

And other aspects of cognition in young children that had a strong influence on the American
educational system and helped launch the field of cognitive psychology.

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Cognitive Psychology is the science of how we think. It's concerned with our inner mental processes
such as attention, perception, memory, action planning, and language.

Thinking about Metacognition is the process of thinking about one's own thinking and learning.
Metacognition: intentional thinking about how you think and learn. Thinking Cognitive learning is an
active style of learning that focuses on helping you learn how to maximize your brain's potential.

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What is Jerome Bruner philosophy of education?

Bruner posits that the hypothetical mode increases intellectual potency, emphasizes intrinsic rewards,
aids the student in the mastery of the heuristics of discovery learning, and facilitates memory
processing. decreases the learner's reliance on extrinsic rewards.
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BRUNER’S THREE-TIERED OF LEARNING -

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 organized appropriately, in sharp contrast to the beliefs of Piaget and other
stage theorists.

In his research on the cognitive development of children, Jerome Bruner proposed three modes of
representation:

The Cone of Experience by Dale is connected to the idea of Bruner wherein he classified three (3) types
of learners.

• ENACTIVE LEARNERS- These are learners that learn from direct manipulation and application of
concepts they have learned. Enactive learning is learning by doing and experiencing the consequences
of your actions, which provide information.

• ICONIC LEARNERS- These learners learn best through printed visuals and auditory. 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.

• SYMBOLIC LEARNERS- Abstract Concepts and Ideas can easily be managed by a symbolic learner. It
suggests that visual cues develop and enhance the learner's way on interpreting information by making
a mental blueprint on how and what must be done to finish a certain task.

Enactive representation (action-based)

Iconic representation (image-based)

Symbolic representation (language-based)

Slide 5 ENACTIVE LEARNERS (0-1)

The first kind of memory. This mode is used within the first year of life (corresponding with Piaget’s
sensorimotor stage). Thinking is based entirely on physical actions, and infants learn by doing what is
learning by doing? Learning by doing is the idea that we learn more when we actually “do” the activity.,
rather than by internal representation (or thinking).

It involves encoding physical action based information and storing it in our memory. For example, in the
form of movement as a muscle memory, a baby might remember the action of shaking a rattle.

Rattle - A baby's toy designed to make sound when shaken,

Representation of objects and events through action and movement, which is characteristic of infants
and small children. That is, the child understands things in terms of how they can be manipulated, used,
or acted upon.
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ICONIC LEARNERS - which is the visual summarization of images and diagrams. It is based upon internal
imagery. Knowledge is represented by a set of images/graphics/drawings that stand for a concept but
do not fully define it.

Information is stored as sensory images (icons), usually visual ones, like pictures in the mind. For some,
this is conscious; others say they don’t experience it.

This may explain why, when we are learning a new subject, it is often helpful to have diagrams or
illustrations to accompany the verbal information.

Thinking is also based on the use of other mental images (icons), such as hearing, smell or touch.

Slide 7 Sybmolic 7 years onward

This develops last. This is where information is stored in the form of a code or symbol, such as language.
Symbolic learning theory is a theory that explains how images play an important part on receiving and
processing information. It suggests that visual cues develop and enhance the learner's way on
interpreting information by making a mental blueprint on how and what must be done to finish a certain
task. This mode is acquired around six to seven years-old (corresponding to Piaget’s concrete
operational stage).

In the symbolic stage, knowledge is stored primarily as words, mathematical symbols, or in other symbol
systems, such as music.

Symbols are flexible in that they can be manipulated, ordered, classified, etc. so the user isn’t
constrained by actions or images (which have a fixed relation to that which they represent).

Discovery Learning

Bruner (1961) proposes that learners construct their own knowledge and do this by organizing and
categorizing 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 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 students discover the
relationship between bits of information.

To do this a teacher must give students the information they need, but without organizing for them. The
use of the spiral curriculum can aid the process of discovery learning.
Spiral Curriculum

A spiral curriculum is one in which there is an iterative revisiting of topics, subjects or themes
throughout the course. A spiral curriculum is not simply the repetition of a topic taught. It requires also
the deepening of it, with each successive encounter building on the previous one.