Talk Presented at Symposium Honoring Jerome Bruner, Meetings of the American Anthropological Association. San Francisco, Nov. 17, 2000 My remarks today continue a conversation with Jerry Bruner on the nature of cultural variations in development and their significance for improving educational practices that began almost 40 years ago. Jerry was part of a group that sent me to Liberia to investigate the difficulties that local rural children experienced in attempting to master elementary mathematics as a part of a broad effort at curriculum reform. By a happy accident, at about the same time I began that work I moved to Yale University where Bill Kessen involved me in research on "Man a course of study" which sought to institute reforms in the teaching of social sciences. My task was to observe how the curriculum was instituted by a pair of experienced teachers who had gone through a summer training program in its use

Bruner's view that the student should become an active participant in the educational process has been widely accepted. In The Process of Education (1960) he asserts that, given the appropriate teaching method, every child can successfully study any subject at any stage of his or her intellectual development. Bruner's later work involves the study of the pre-speech developmental processes and linguistic communication skills in children

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 selects 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 (i.e., socratic learning). 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.

Learning Theory - Narrative centered cultural interaction. Neutral interactive transactional selves.

Biography, Bruner’s Work on Cognition and Constructivism,Implications and Applications of Bruner’s Theories, Publications

Research Biography Publication Adress

El estudio de las estrategias cognitivas ha constituido uno de los temas privilegiados de la práctica y reflexión psicológica y pedagógica en los últimos años, producto de los vertiginosos cambios tecnológicos que sacuden al mundo en este final de siglo. Diversas corrientes han subrayado su significación, a partir de aproximaciones teóricas y metodológicas del mas variado carácter. Es sumamente difícil encontrar un área de la psicología y pedagogía actuales en la que no se planteen las condiciones que propician el surgimiento, la formación, el desarrollo y la evaluación. Ahora surge en nuestro pensamiento la siguiente inquietud: ¿Qué autores han edificado con sus investigaciones y reflexiones este tema? Entre los múltiples pensadores que se pudieran mencionar, uno que en nuestra psiquis ocupa un lugar especial es Jerome Bruner. Como una reseña sobre sus principales trabajos en torno a estrategias cognoscitivas estará encaminado este trabajo.

Itroduction, Jrome s. Bruner - his life, the process of education, the culture of education, conclusion, further reading and references, links It is surely the case that schooling is only one Jerome Bruner has made a profound contribution to our appreciation of the process of education and to the development of curriculum theory. We explore his work and draw out some important lessons for informal educators and those concerned with the practice of lifelong learning.

As I see it, in The Culture of Education (TCE) Bruner is gradually bringing into visibility what until recently we have almost all ignored: the crucial importance, and ineradicable presence, of our cultural practices. And more than in any of his other books - still 'unfinished' at 80 plus! - he carries us on yet further toward a cultural psychology suitable for their study.

In the past in social theory, two spheres of activity have occupied our attention: people's individual actions, and their behavior. But now, dialogical phenomena - and what Bruner focuses on as narrative phenomena - seen as occurring in a sphere somewhere in between these other two, are coming to constitute a distinct, third realm of activity requiring its own distinct kind of attention.