Who contributed to this perspective?

Jean Piaget developed the theory of genetic epistemology in which he attempted to explain the processes by which a person develops thinking skills. He suggested that cognitive development was a relatively predictable process of escalating stages of mental capabilities that resulted from a combination of physical maturation and experience. He believed that individuals from infancy create a mental image of the world around them and then experience whether that image is accurate by constantly testing it against reality. In this way, learning occurs. If the individual becomes aware that reality supports the model, then accommodation happens. Accommodation is a change involving the acceptance of new information and the subsequent adjustment of behavior or outlook. Thus the supporting information is incorporated into the mental model. But if the model and reality are inconsistent, the individual experiences, in Piaget's terms, disequilibrium. Disequilibrium occurs when a belief and reality do not coincide. In that case, the information either is rejected or changes the mental model. Learning thus occurs when one has sufficiently altered one's mental models in response to reality.

Jerome Bruner too focused on learning as a process resulting from how an individual thinks and incorporates new information. In his view emphasis is on an individual's cognitive structures or schema that develop in specific stages. One's schema provides meaning and organization to one's experience and allows individuals to incorporate and transform new information. Furthermore, in his Spiral Learning Model, he theorized that instruction should be arranged in a spiral manner in which the student is continually able to build on what he or she already knows.

Bruner called his position on learning, not a learning theory, but an instructional theory. To him, a learning theory describes how learning takes place, whereas an instructional theory is prescriptive in that it directs how a subject is to be taught. His prescription included four steps: motivation, structure, sequence, and reinforcement. To carry out these steps, students must discover the basic principles underlying the topic being studied. Bruner named this instructional theory discovery learning. Discovery incorporates the natural desire to solve problems and the search for solutions and thus results in learning.

Ausubel offered his own cognitive-based theory, subsumption theory. Subsumption refers to putting any item into a larger, more comprehensive category. Subsumption theory is a theory that connects new skills or ideas into the larger scope of past experiences. In subsumption theory, Ausubel suggests that learning occurs when new information is linked to an existing cognitive model. Cognitive models are thus in a state of continuous transformation and reorganization as new information is subsumed.

In affirming Bruner's theory, Ausubel added that "the essential feature of discovery learning, whether concept formation or rote problem-solving is that the principle content of what is to be learned is not given but must be discovered by the learner before he can incorporate it meaningfully." To be meaningful, as Ausubel saw it, the learner must first have at his or her command a skill or concept that is applicable to a new situation. Learning therefore occurs when learners discover connections to previously learned material that is already within their cognitive structures.

These cognitive theorists share the view of learning as cognitive information processing. Unlike behaviorists, who see learning as a result of the external environment, cognitive theorists see learning as a result of processes within the internal mental environment. Both, however, view knowledge as essentially given, external, and absolute. The individual learns this fixed knowledge either by action of external stimuli or by individual processes.

Activity

Research one of the theorists presented above to better understand this perspective. Considering what you have seen attending, observing, or working in schools and what you found in your research, what impact has this perspective had on education? How do you feel it will impact your teaching? Be prepared to explain in class.

Want to know more? Check out these sites:

http://www.pserie.psu.edu/hss/psych/cog/cog1.htm

http://ndnd.essortment.com/jeanpiagetbiog_rhhh.htm

http://www.teachers.ash.org.au/teachereduc/Piaget.html

http://tip.psychology.org/Spiro.html

http://edweb.sdsu.edu/courses/edtec540/Perspectives/Perspectives.html

http://psy.pdx.edu/PsiCafe/KeyTheorists/Bruner.htm

http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/itc_data/cogsci.html

http://web.lemoyne.edu/~hevern/nr-theorists/bruner_jerome_s.html

http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/piaget.html

Sources

Ausubel, D. P., Novak, J. D., & Hanesian, H. 1978. Educational psychology: A cognitive view (2nd ed.). New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston

Bruner, J. S. 1962. On knowing. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Bruner, J. S. 1966. Toward a theory of instruction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

Bruner, J. S. 1969. The relevance of education. New York: W. W. Norton.

Piaget, J. 1952. The origins of intelligence in children. New York: International Universities.

Piaget, J. 1970. Science of education and the psychology of the child (D. Coltman, Trans.) New York: Orion.

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