Theorists and their major contributions

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 the child still a concrete physical existence as the child cannot yet conceptualize in an abstract manner.

Concrete Operations stage: Age seven years to eleven years is the stage characterized by the accumulation of experience for the child in which conceptualization occurs as well as the creation of logic in structures explaining the experiences in the physical world.

Formal Operations stage: Ages eleven years to fifteen years is the point in time that the cognitive structures are coming to the conceptualization reasoning of an adult. 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 the information which has been provided them. According to Bruner (1996) there are four major elements that should be focused upon in the theory of instructions as follows:

The learner's predisposition toward learning.

The different way that knowledge may be structured for easier understanding on the part of the learner.

The most effective sequential presentation of the information or material to the learner.

The nature and frequency of presenting rewards and/or punishment

Both Bruner and Piaget place the same emphasis on the cognitive development in children as they develop and learn. The Theoretical Framework of both Bruner and Piaget are both of the idea that children build new knowledge upon the basis of the knowledge already held previously. There exists a difference however in one basic belief of the two theorists. Piaget believed that development proceeds by assimilation of the environment to these structures (cognitive structures) and the accommodation of these structure to the environment where as Bruner held that while environment may influence and either enhance or slow cognitive development that individuals are not merely a mirror of their environment. For example, a fifteen-year-old girl from a home with two alcoholic parents who never hold a job and only one parent knows how to read and barely that would be expected to be a child into trouble with minimal cognitive skills in learning. However, the child is studious, mannerly, and has amazingly overcome her upbringing. Somehow the theoretical framework of Piaget has missed its' point in this situation while Bruner's more common-sense understanding of cognitive development has with his assumption based on "predisposition toward learning" as well as the individual not being merely "a mirror of the individual's environment explained why this fifteen-year-old girl has seemingly risen above her beginnings and circumstances and is a model learner.