Educational Material

iram · Loyal Member Joined: 17 Jun 2008 Posts: 336

Bruner’s Theory of Learning

Bruner (1960) identified four strategies in concept attainment.

SIMULTANEOUS SCANNING

In this type of strategy, the subject uses each positive instance (each correctly identified card), to deduce which combinations of attribute values are no longer valid. The subject must keep in mind simultaneously all the rejected combinations in order to narrow down the range of subsequent alternatives. This technique is not very efficient since it places a great deal of strain on the subject’s memory.

SUCCESSIVE SCANNING

In this technique the subject makes an overall estimate of each correct characteristic of the concept and test, each one by one. This is called successive scanning since the subject tests individual hypothesis about the correct characteristic one at a time in succession. This technique too is inefficient as the subject may choose redundant cards, which give no new information.

CONSERVATIVE FOCUSING:

In this technique, each attribute is tested by selecting a card that is different from a focus card in only one attribute. If the new card is still a positive instance, then the subject knows that the varied attribute is not part of the concept. If, however, the changed attribute yields a negative instance, then the attribute is a part of the concept. For example, the concept to be attained is “red circles”. Assume that the subject encounters a positive card with three red circles and two borders. This card becomes the focus card and each variable is examined by selecting. This technique is more efficient since the subject users a correct instance as a point of reference and selects additional cards to test each attribute value individually.

FOCUS GAMBLING

In this strategy the subject focuses on a correct card, but varies more than one attribute at a time. This technique can give early result if cards chosen yield a positive instance. If, however, the subject encounters a negative instance, he cannot tell which attribute was essential. In that case he has to revert to simultaneous-scanning technique to test hypotheses. This strategy is called gambling since the subject takes a chance varying two attributes at a time.
“Students should learn structure of a field of study”.
Usually schools ensure that children nave many opportunities to interact with their environment and are given plenty of concrete materials to develop their mathematical understanding. In using computers in education, Seymor Papert, who worked with Jean Piaget in Geneva, was particularly influenced by Piaget’s ideas and argued that educational software should be designed to develop children’s thinking. He applied these arguments to the use of the programming language LOGO, which he claims can benefit children in their mathematical thinking. He claims that LOGO provides a culture, which helps to make abstract mathematical concepts simple and concrete so that the child can relate them to his or her existing knowledge and fit them into his or her knowledge structure.
J.S. Bruner (1960) has suggested a model on concept, attainment and structure in teaching. He proposes that economy in thinking and responding requires that we categories phenomena according to their common attributes. An attribute is a property or characteristic of an object, which differentiates it from others. Colour, texture, form, size, number of parts, position and sound are examples of attributes. We categories objects having common characteristics into one group. For example, we categories certain animals having four legs, a tail and a barking voice as dog. Similarly we can also categories more abstract concepts such as enemy or friend, artisan or professional, etc. For teaching about a concept the teacher must identify such attributes of that concept, which differentiate it from others. For example, dog and cat have four legs and a tail, but cat has a different voice than the dog. “Students should learn structure of field of study.” Bruner (1960) studied the strategies people use in acquiring concepts. For this he used a set of cards, some cards having borders, others without. All the cards have center figures varying in shape, in color (red, green or black) and in number (single, double, or triple). Each card thus combines four attributes; figure shape, figure number, figure color and presence or absence of borders. Each attribute has three values as listed above. The subject is told that the experimenter has a concept in mind, say red circles, and the subject was to identify that concept. The subject is asked to select a card and is then told by the experimenter whether or not the card was an instance of the concept. With these data in mind, the subject would select another card to determine further the attributes of the concepts and would continue doing so till he finds the answer i.e. the card with red circles.
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iram · Loyal Member Joined: 17 Jun 2008 Posts: 336

CONSTRUCTIVIST THEORIES

In the view of constructivist, learning is a constructive process in which the learner is building an internal illustration of knowledge, a personal interpretation of experience. This representation is continually open to modification, its structure and linkages forming the ground to which other knowledge structures are attached. Learning is an active process in which meaning is accomplished on the basis of experience. This view of knowledge does not necessarily reject the existence of the real world, and agrees that reality places constrains on the concepts that are, but contends that all we know of the world are human interpretations of our experience of the world. Conceptual growth comes from the sharing of various perspectives and the simultaneous changing of our internal representations in response to those perspectives as well as through cumulative experience

EDUCATIONAL ASPECTS:

The study of human cognition has many specific applications for educational practice and technology use.
The following are five general educational applications of constructive theory that should be considered when designing instruction.

If learning depends on how information is mentally processed, then student’s cognitive processes should be major concern to educators. Students learning difficulties can often be attributed to ineffective or inappropriate cognitive process. For example, learning disabled children process information less effectively than non-disabled children (Swanson, 1987). Teachers must become aware of not only of what students learn, but also of how they attempt to learn it.

Educators must consider students levels of cognitive development when planning topics and methods of instruction. For example explanations based on concrete operational logic are unlikely to be effective ways of presenting ideas to preoperational kindergarteners. Concrete operational elementary school children have difficulties in understanding abstract ideas that do not tie in with their own experiences. These students will learn more effectively if the same information is presented through concrete, hands-on examples. Even high school and college students, who have not completed the formal operational stage, will need concrete experiences prior to presenting abstract material.

Students organize the information they learn. Teachers can help students learn by presenting organized information and by helping students see how one thing relates to another.

New information is most likely acquired when people can associate it with things they have already learned. Therefore, teachers should help students learn by showing them how new ideas relate to old ones. When students are unable to relate new information to anything with which they are familiar, learning is likely to be slow and ineffective.

B.F. Skinner has argued from an operant conditioning perspective that students must actively respond if they are to learn. Cognitivists share that with Skinner; however, they emphasize mental activity rather than physical one. If students control their own cognitive process, it is ultimately the students themselves who decide what information will be learned, and how.
The constructivist learning strategies and the use of Instructional Technology. The ideas of Piaget concerning the active construction, structuring knowledge and stages of development, have been drawn on for long in education and specially in using computers in education. For example Davis remarks how:
The stress on the stage-like nature of cognition has given support to the notion of readiness-children will only learn effectively if their educational experience are suitably matched to their current level of understanding.
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iram · Loyal Member Joined: 17 Jun 2008 Posts: 336

RETRIEVAL PROCESSES

A number of studies show that we forget things, not because they have not been stored in memory, but because we are not able to cue into the particular area where that information is stored. Perhaps, an example will help to clarify this. Suppose a tauter is in his study marking an assignment. In the assignment he comes across a reference to a book, he does not possess and being of suspicious rature, he decided to check up on it. Relying on his memory for the book title the tutor sets off to the library. On his way, he meets a colleague and they become involved in an animated conversation about a film they have both seen recently. After this, the tutor proceeds to the library, only to find he has forgotten the name of the book. He returns to his study and as he opens the door, he sees the student’s name on the top of assignment. Immediately the title of the book flushes into his mind. He has been cued back to the area in memory, without actually needing to open up the assignment and look up the name of the book. This indicates that part of memory lies in the ability to retrieve stored information. As in acquiring information, so in retrieving information, strategies are very important.

LABELING AT THE RETRIEVAL STAGES

A number of studies shows that younger children can recall lists as well as older children. If they are given cues for organizing the lists, not only as they learn the lists, but also before they are required to recall the lists. This seems to show that older children not only categories information on input to memory but are also more likely to use these category systems spontaneously at recall. Younger children need to be helped at the recall stage by appropriate case because they do not automatically call such strategies into play.
Organizing by semantics (meaning) In addition, It has been shown that, the older they get, the more likely children are to organize him. By meaning and not by sound. Thus asked to remember the following list--- book, nuts, magazine, bread, melons and newspapers, the younger child may tend to categories as follows: two words beginning with ‘B’ two with ‘M’ and two with ‘N’: whereas the older child may say ‘three to read and three things to eat. As in general, the second, semantic (meaning) categorization is more efficient than the one based on sound.
Self-awareness in memory skills:
Hagen and his associates (1979) review a number of studies that show the older the child, the more he knows about how he uses his memory. Thus if you ask children of different ages whether it is easier to learn pairs of words like boy-girl, up-down, or pairs like Marry comes, John goes, the older the child the more likely he will be able to say (correctly) that opposites are easier.
Then, we can see that the child gets older as his strategies for storing and retrieving information both increase and improve. Further the older the child, the more active and self-aware he becomes in his efforts to remember.
Before concluding the section on memory, we should of course add that in order to remember anything we must be paying attention. Also level of motivation is important. We cannot remember things in any detail unless we actually want to. Finally, anxiety tends to reduce the efficiency tried to cram frenziedly for an examination will know!

CONCEPTS FORMATION

When we first referred to concepts at the beginning of this section, we indicated that concepts represent abstracted characteristics of many events, stimuli or symbols. We form concepts in our day-to-day life by continually coming across members of the particular concept class and then deciding that they are all linked by unifying attributes. In this section we shall first look at the way concepts become progressively more elaborated with age and then we shall look at the basis on which children are likely to form concepts about using objects into groups and how this changes with age.
The elaboration of concepts with age.
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iram · Loyal Member Joined: 17 Jun 2008 Posts: 336

ABSTRACTION

We have already referred to the difference between a concrete concept like cat and an abstract one like ‘beauty’. It is clear that the more the child is operating in what Bruner has called the symbolic mode, the easier it will be for him to form abstract concepts like justice, intelligence so on.

COMPLEXITY

Concepts differ in the number of simpler concepts we need to define them. For example, the concept of smoke is simple for it rests on the three concepts of wispy, gray substance and rising in the air. The concept of society is complex for it includes the concepts of customs, laws, family structure, educational and legal institutions. The older the child, the more complex concepts are available to him.

VALIDITY

The validity of a person’s concept is the degree to which his understanding of it across with that of the community at large. The younger the child, the more personal and the less valid his concepts are likely to be. For example, the young child’s understanding of love may refer to what he feels for his family, whereas the adult’s concept of love may be linked to religion (love others as you do yourself), politics (brothers or comeradately love for all men), sex, and so on.

STATUS

The status of concept refers to its degree of clarity and stability in use. A 3-years-old’s understanding of a half may be as a part of whole, whereas by the time he is 6 or 7 he will know that exactly two halves make a whole and that, therefore two halves are identical in substance.

ACCESSIBILITY

Young children may often have an understanding of a concept, say, beauty, in that they will be able to use the word – this is beautiful – but they will not be able to tell you exactly what they mean by the use of the word. The older child, on the other hand, will be able to tell some; at least, for the attributes an object must possess for him to label it as beautiful. That is, the older the child, the more accessible his concepts become for communication to others.

RELATIVITY OF CONCEPTS

It is sometimes difficult for a young child to see that a seed, say, is a good thing to play with, but may be a bad thing to eat. He has not learned to judge the concept relative to its context. Similarly, if you ask him which yellow is darker? He may respond by saying that yellow is not a dark colour , because he does not understand the question is relative one and for him yellow possesses the absolute attribution of lightness in comparison to other colures like black and brown.
The implications of these limitations in the child’s use of concepts are very clear for the educationalist. She must not assume, without checking it out that children use concepts in the same way that she as an adult does. However, this analysis rests on the assumption common to process thinking about cognition: children’s thinking is not qualitatively different from adults. It is just less elaborated. You will this is very different from Piaget’s viewpoint that children’s thinking is qualitatively different from adults.
Changes of sorting of objects with age. In order to investigate how children form concepts that is how they decide on critical attributes underlying a class, a number of studies have been done in the West investigating the way children group objects. Musses and his associates (1974) summaries a number of these and consider that, in general , the older the child, the more likely they are to use the third rather than the first or second of those listed below:
• Functional-location. This is the kind of system where a child groups objects together because they are all found in the same place, for example, all the animals on a form.
• Functional-relational. This is the kind of system where a child groups objects together because of relation between them, for example, a pipe and match because the match can light the pipe.
We have now considered three cognitive processes – perception, memory and concept formation--and we are ready to move on to the fourth process in which all three processes previously considered tend to be combined together. Let us consider this fourth process reasoning – as an activity where hypotheses are generated and then tested. Before moving on to consider experiments in this area let us, consider an everyday example of reasoning.
Let us assume a mother has three children aged 4 , 6 and 8. She comes into a room where the 4-years-old is playing and reaching up on the top of a cupboard takes out a jar and twist the lid off and places a bag of sweets inside and leaves the room. The 6-years old immediately climbs up on a chair and removes the jar. Now he generate the hypothesis that like his mother he can twist the lid. He tries to do this but his hands are not strong enough so the refines the twisting hypothesis by trying to use a cloth to help twist the lid off. This also fails so he settles down to rest until his older sister arrives from outside. When he explains the problem to her she generates the hypothesis that perhaps the lid can be knocked off so she tries to do this by banging at the side of the lid with a hammer. When this does not work, she refines her hypothesis by trying to lever the lid off with a coin. But once again she is unsuccessful and the two children settle down to wait until the oldest child arrives from school. On being told that neither twisting nor banging nor levering works, the third child is forced to generate a third hypothesis. He considers the dimension of the problem and then noting that the lid metal while the jar is glass, decides to test the hypothesis that the lid may expand more quickly than the jar. Removing the jar in the sink, he runs hot water over the lid and is thus able to remove it as it expands.
Here the children have been grappling with the problem that the lid was screwed on too tightly. They first generated as “Bruce force” hypothesis, then a ‘tool’ hypothesis and finally solved it by applying a principle of physics. So we can see that problem solving is in general enable to generating a series of hypotheses and testing them systematically.
Jerome Bruner was very interested in children’s stages of cognitive development. He described development in three stages:
The enactive stage (birth to about age 3) is when children perceive the environment through actions that they initiate. Showing and modeling have the most learning value at this stage.
The iconic stage (about age 3- Cool

is when children are able to remember and use information through imagery. Their visual memory increases at this stage and children are able to imagine things without actually experiencing them.
The symbolic stage (about age Cool

children have the ability to think and talk about things in abstract terms. They have a better understanding on mathematical principles and the use of symbols and the use of symbolic idioms.
Bruner was very concerned with the idea of discovery learning and felt that students were more likely to understand concepts they had discovered through their own exploration and experience.
A major theme in the theoretical framework of Bruner is that learning is an active process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based upon their current/past knowledge. The learner select and transforms information, constructs hypotheses, and makes decisions, relying on a cognitive structure to do so. Cognitive structure(i.e., schema, mental models) provides meaning and organization to experiences and allows the individual to “go beyond the information given”.
As far as instruction is concerned, the instructor should try and encourage students to discover principles by themselves. The instructor and student should engage in an active dialog. The task of the instructor is to translate information to be learned into a format appropriate to the learner’s current state of understanding. Curriculum should be organized in a spiral manner so that the student continually builds upon what they have already learned.
Bruner(1966) states that a theory of instruction should address four major aspects:
• Predisposition towards learning,
• The ways in which a body of knowledge can be structured so that it can be most readily grasped by the learner,
• The most effective sequences in which to present material, and
• The nature and pacing of rewards and punishments. Good methods for structuring knowledge should result in simplifying, generating new propositions, and increasing the manipulation of information.
In his more recent work, Bruner has expanded his theoretical framework to encompass the social and cultural aspects of learning as well as the practice of law.
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princess · Friends Empire Emperor Joined: 23 Oct 2011 Posts: 31145

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