FD SUPPORTING TEACHING AND LEARNING PRINCIPLES OF TEACHING, LEARNING AND ASSESSMENT LEARNING THEORISTS

BRUNER American psychologist 1915 – 20TH Century theorist – 50-60s but still writing http://www.infed.org/thinkers/bruner.htm Brunner built on the work of Vygotski and suggested a cultural context to teaching and learning He advocated 3 main developments

Theory of development 0-1 – Enactive – this stage is action based – learning through action to gain knowledge and information. This can occur in adults e.g. action based learning – learning to type, drive. 1-6 – Iconic – use of visual images to gain knowledge e.g. use of diagrams, pictures when learning 7+ - Symbolic – knowledge stored as language and other symbols

Comparison Opposed Piaget’s readiness theory Says schools waste time trying to match development to correct level to learn Learning development should be smooth not based on age

Task Identify what has followed these views in education. Any other developments which may follow this theory?

BRUNER 1 Spiralling The process of returning to previous learning in the light of new learning to aid understanding and make sense of new experiences Implies some degree of ‘provisional’ nature of learning

BRUNER 1 Spiralling The spiral curriculum involved teaching the same concepts at different ages but with increasing complexity This can be seen in the NC – topic are introduced and revisited in later years The way in which a subject is taught should correspond to their current way of thinking (3 ways depending on age) Ref: S Bentham – A teaching Assistant guide to child development and Psychology in the classroom

BRUNER 2 Role of the home Brunner takes much more account of the role of the home life of the child Particularly in relation to a child’s cognitive and linguistic development Role of mother/parent important in development

BRUNER 3 Role of Culture How culture affects the way in which children went about their learning - particularly Impact of poverty Impact of racism Impact of deprivation

BRUNER Researched social conditions in which child lives to try to understand learning development – what affects it. Suggests that socio-economic context of education is as important as Piaget ideas – in the understanding of how learning develops