Bruner

Bruner
• technologies serve as amplifiers of human capabilities
ex. human memory is amplified by use of writing
human physical strength is amplified by use of mechanical tools
human ability to calculate numbers is amplified by use of computers

• 3 systems to represent environments:
1) patterned motor acts - enactive representation
representing past events through motor responses (representations are
retained within our muscles)
ex. learning dance routines - learning to drive a car
2) imagery and perception - iconic representation
representing events by developing percepts and images
ex. maps - diagrams - icons on a computer desktop
3) language and reason - symbolic representation
representing mental and physical events by using symbols
higher level of abstraction
ex. speech - writing - mathematics
•usually learners progress from enactive, to iconic, to symbolic
is the learning task represented in a way that is compatible to the learner’s mode of
representing the world?
What can we do to help learners in different modes of learning?
Math - manipulatives
Spiral Curriculum - use enactive with younger students, iconic with older, symbolic with
the oldest - but depending on the specific domain you can use these strategies
with various ages of learners

•Learning and Education
Discovery Learning - an expectation of finding regularities and relationshiop in the
envirionment
Culture & Cognitive Growth - intelligence is to a great extent the internatlization of tools
provided by a given culture

Summary: “Theories of instruction must bring together the nature of knowlege, the nature of the knower, and the nature of the knowledge-getting process.” (Bruner, 1966)