GUIDED DISCOVERY APPROCH IN SCIENCE LEARNING THEORY AND PRATICAL

ROSHIN ANIE ROY

Jerome Bruner:

• Born in New York City on October 1, 1915• Education -BA, Duke University (1937) -MA, Harvard University (1939) -Ph.D. Harvard University (1941) • Publication - The culture of education - The process of education• Spiral curriculum• One of the founding fathers of constructivist

theory

Discovery Learning Theory

An approach to instruction through which students interact with their environment

By exploring and manipulating objects, wrestling with questions and controversies, or performing experiments

Students discover knowledge, developing their own understanding.

PRINCIPLE OF J BRUNER’S THEORY

• Readiness• Spiral organisation• going beyond the information given

Cognitive Development

Like piaget, Bruner believed in 3 stages of instruction based on development

• Enactive Stage (birth to age 3)• Iconic Stage (age 3 to 8)• Symbolic (from age 8) Each mode is dominant at different phases of

development but all are present accessible

Enactive Stage

From birth to about age 3. Children need to experience the concrete. Usually involves a motor response. Children use actions to manipulate objects. Objects are defined by what they can do with

them. Showing and modelling is important versus

telling at this stage

Iconic Stage

From about age 3 to about age 8 Children are able to think about things that are

not physically present Images are primarily visual or based in another

sense Ex. They can do math problems in their head.

Symbolic Representation Stage

This stage occurs at about age 7 Bruner believes that in this stage, children are

able to transform action and image into a symbolic system to encode knowledge

The “symbols” are primarily linguistic and mathematical

Symbolic Representation is a major tool in reflective thinking

Spiral curriculum

• Learner built on past experience• Students interact with the environment• Discovers fact and relationship their own• Student create own construct of knowledge

through narrative

Classroom Application

• Exploration

• Invention

• Discovery

Advantages

• Autonomous, self directed and responsible.• Enhances the development of intellectual

capacities and problem solving.• Enhances motivation, interest and satisfaction• Minimizes verbal learning.• Give more time for assimilate and accumulate

information.

Disadvantages

• More time• Difficulties to slow learners• Teachers are not properly trained• Expected benefits don't show up in regular

achievement test

Summary• Bruner believed that students learn best through

discovery and a spiralled curriculum.

• He said that knowing is a process rather than the accumulated knowledge as acquired in textbooks

• Bruner believed that we should instruct students to use the tools, instruments, and technologies available to them to unlock their potential

Previous QuestionWhat are the special features of guided discovery

learning? How does it benefit the learning process in children? 5mark ( April 2014)

References And Links• Teaching science ( Dr. Mariamma Mathew)• Bruner’s Theory

http://evolution.massey.ac.nz/assign2/BP/Bruner.html

• Teaching ( Dr.shivarajan) science

THANK YOU