Jerome Bruner

The third and final theorist that our group will focus on is Jerome Bruner. Unlike Piaget who believes that each stage of development is age specific, Bruner does not attach ages specifically to his theory. Please read the content presented below and then post your answers to the questions provided below in the Vista Group 2 discussion thread. Bruner would suggest that teachers spiral their teaching of concepts so that lessons build on one another to build upon previous knowledge.

Jerome Bruner Bruner is sometimes referred to as one of the founding fathers of constructivism. It is his belief that students learn concepts best through discovery learning where the students use their own previous knowledge to construct their understanding of how things operate. “To promote concept discovery, the teacher presents the set of instances that will best help learners to develop an appropriate model of the concept (Driscoll, 2005).

Bruner's three stages of development include

Enactive “knowledge is stored primarily in the form of motor responses.” (Alexander 2002). In this stage individuals are learning through motor skills and by experimenting with and learning to manipulate objects. An example would be teaching someone how to play the hand clapping game patty cake. In the game patty cake the motions are learned by doing the motion. It would be very difficult to try to teach someone this game by describe the actions verbally.

Iconic “knowledge is stored primarily in the form of visual images ” (Alexander 2002). Human learning is generated by imagery in this stage. The individual is able to generate mental images of events.

In the iconic stage it is very important to present a number of different visual aids to students to supplement teaching material. Examples include images, videos, charts and graphs.

Classroom Example – Unit on Whales

If trying to demonstrate the different sizes of the whales a teacher could show an image of a person standing next to a humpback whale which would demonstrate the size comparison between humans and humpbacks. The teacher could then show another image that would show an orca or gray whale next to a humpback. To follow up the images the teacher could then have the students graph the length of the whales in meters.

Symbolic “knowledge is stored primarily as words, mathematical symbols, or in other symbol systems ” (Alexander 2002).

An example of a teacher using the symbolic stage of instruction may be a teacher who is discussing a concept such as birds and their migration in the different seasons. The teacher may discuss flight, what the birds eat and where the birds migrate to. In this case the teacher is using language (words) to describe the birds, what they eat and their migration.

Although many students may be able to understand the teachers’ lesson on birds and their migration the teacher is making an assumption that the students have a well developed symbolic system. Without preceding lessons that “hit” the enactive and iconic stage the possibility exists that the students will not have the background information to be able to fully understand the concept.


Abstract thought occurs in the symbolic stage. Take for example a math teacher explaining that a+b =c.


*** Of specific note - Bruner does not attach specific ages to his stages of development.

Adults who are learning new concepts may have extreme difficulty learning new concepts with items taught at the symbolic stage even though their symbolic system is well developed. In order for adults to learn new concepts it may be beneficial for teachers to try a series of lessons that progress through the enactive and iconic stage. For example, Driscoll in the article Psychology of Learning for Instruction notes that some adults may struggle learning how a computer works if the concepts are discussed at the symbolic stage. In order to promote student understanding “the teacher built a board with slots … and cards … [and then] actually moved the cards though the input storage and output [to meet] the students requirement for learning” (Driscoll, 2005). In this example, the teacher geared the lesson toward the iconic stage to help the students to generate a mental image for the workings of a computer.

Another example

Think of a welding shop where the goal of the instructor is to have the students learn to weld two pieces of metal together. For this example, the learning may never reach the symbolic stage and the learning may be limited to the enactive or iconic stage. The student is needing to perform the correct motor responses and visual representation to complete the weld but does not have to understand the inner workings of how a welder operates to perform the task.

Another Thought + Classroom Application

Bruner believed that best learning occurs when lessons are geared in a fashion that moves in a progression from the Enactive to Iconic to Symbolic stages.


Teachers should provide opportunities for students to build upon existing knowledge. For example a grade six teacher teaching a lesson on bridges could do the following series of lessons.

1. Build a model of a bridge (enactive stage)

2. Watch a video that shows different types of bridges and then draw images of the different types of bridges. (iconic stage)

3. Research bridges on the internet and discuss the environmental impact of bridge construction. (symbolic stage)

It may be possible however for teacher to skip the first two stages of development “when a learner has a well developed symbolic system. But one does so with the risk that that the learner may not possess the imagery to fall back on when his symbolic transformations fail to achieve a goal in problem solving” (Bruner, 1966, p.49).


Student Learning

Teachers can present materials from any subject to students as long as the content is modified to match the developmental stage of the student. “Any subject can be taught effectively in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development (Bruner, 1960, p. 33). For example, a grade one teacher could teach a concept such as electricity by having the students act out the movement of electrons, and draw out different and view the different types of light bulbs.

The teacher's job is to guide the discovery process. In other words, in teaching a particular concept, the teacher should present the set of instances that will best help learners develop an appropriate model of the concept” (Joyce Alexander , 2002).

Questions to Consider
How would Bruner suggest a grade one teacher teach concepts about outer space?

Can you recall an instance where you taught or learned something by passing through each of Bruner’s stages of development?

Please discuss these questions in the Symposium section in Vista

Positives for classroom use

- Student constructs an understanding of concepts based on previous knowledge.
- Students “discover” concepts and generate their understanding based on discovery.
- Concepts are presented in a “spiral” manner so that concepts build upon one another.
- Students are actively involved in their education.
- Manipulating, handling, viewing, discussing concepts allows multiple avenues for students to input concepts into their memory.

Limitations for classroom use

- Can be a challenge to have students working at their own pace to discover concepts on their own. Teachers can help to overcome this problem by guiding learners to make discoveries.
- It may be difficult for a teacher to always present student with visual cues.
- Hands on manipulatives are expensive and it is not always possible for teachers/schools to be able to purchase manipulatives to promote student understanding of concepts.
- In courses that have limited time and lots of curriculum to cover it may not be possible for teachers to always sequence lessons to ensure that learning gaps are filled in.

Additional Readings

An Overview of Jerome Brunner His Theory of Constructivism
http://www.odu.edu/educ/roverbau/class_websites/761_spring_04/assets/course_docs/id_theory_reps_sp04/bruner-cherry.pdf

Constructivist Theory
http://tip.psychology.org/bruner.html