Bruner and Piaget Theorists

The purpose of this work is to examine the theorists Jerome Bruner and Jean Piaget in the context in which they wrote and to identify their major influences which helped shape the major themes within their work. Further this work will juxtapose the theories of Bruner and Piaget, identify the points of agreement and disagreement and finally to through an example to demonstrate how each of the theoretical approaches would converge and diverge in relation to instruction and learning.

Jean Piaget

Jean Piaget was a Swiss biologist who is known for his model of development and learning in children. The theory of Piaget is that the development of a child is one that states that the cognitive structure is built upon or concepts for comprehension increases in development of the child. There are four stages of development identified in Piaget's theory which describe the processes of progression in a child's learning. The four stages identified by Piaget are as follows:

Sensorimotor stage: From birth to the age of two years old this stage is experienced through physical interaction in the child's environment. The child in this stage composes concepts in relation to reality and the workings of reality. The child is unaware that objects out of sight indeed still exist during this stage.

Preoperational Stage: Ages two years to seven years is to...

Piaget (
According to Piaget's Theory the experiential learning in children has constructed mental imaging maps. At this point new experiences will cause disequilibrium in the child whereas the same type of experiences will maintain the child's balance.

II. Jerome Bruner:

Bruner's theoretical framework is that learning is a process that is active and in which the new ideas or concepts are constructed by the learner building on the basis of their past and current knowledge. According to Bruner the learner through transformation of information constructs their own hypothesis in relation to new information through use of cognitive structure. According to Bruner it is the cognitive structure that allows the learner to organize the new information or experience and building upon that knowledge already held to gain understanding beyond…