How do Children Grow Cognitively?
How can Teachers create learning environments that Stimulate Cognitive Growth?

Word count: 1299

It is important for teachers to understand how children grow cognitively so that they can create learning environments that stimulate their students’ cognitive growth. There are many theories behind how this can be done. This essay will examine the impact of one of leading theorists of children’s cognitive development, Jerome Bruner (1915- ). Bruner’s influence on teaching practice is still relevant for teachers today. Several examples from my recent practicum illustrate how teachers could apply aspects of Bruner’s theories such as the nature vs nurture debate, categorization, discovery learning, spiral curriculum and three modes of representation.
Cognitive development is a field of psychology theorizing children’s mental ability to process information and to critically think, reason, remember and understand that information (Duchesne, McMaugh Bochner, & Krauser, 2013). The nature vs nurture debate is ever present in this area. Theorists have different viewpoints on the extent to which nature, genes, DNA and maturation determine a person’s cognitive abilities. Are we born with a fixed cognitive ability? Or are how we were raised, our interactions and our experience the major factors in our cognitive growth? Bruner believed that our cognitive development was determinant on both nature and nurture. Nurture was significant because it would amplify a human’s natural cognitive capabilities (McLeod, 2008).
Bruner’s early theories were constructivist in that he based his cognitive development around categorization and discovery learning. Categorization is how children cognitively grow through processing information by placing it into categorizes and interpreting the world in terms of similarities and differences. Bruner stated that “to perceive is to categorize, to conceptualize is to categorize, to learn is to form categories, to make decisions is to categorize” (cited in Lutz & Huitt, 2004, p. 7). To effectively categorize, children must discover the learning for themselves. He thought that students were active participants in their own cognitive development (McLeod, 2008). By discovering the information for themselves, children better understand and remember the information. Bruner believed that new ideas were able to be formed based on a person’s past knowledge. First hand experience is therefore an essential learning tool. Through discovery, children nurtured their learning by thinking and reasoning about the world in a new way. The learner takes fragments of their past knowledge and experiences to make sense of facts, from relationship and new truths to be learned. From experience the mind creates “generic coding systems that permit one to go beyond the data to new and possibly fruitful predictions” (cited in McLeod, 2008, p.2).
Bruner’s theories later expanded to include research on how culture and social structure can take a critical role in a child’s cognitive development. Culture shapes the child’s experience and perspective of what constituted ‘knowledge’. This socio-cultural approach recognised that society gives children tools to grow cognitively and value knowledge in particular ways (Lutz & Huitt, 2004.). Different skills and types of knowledge are necessary in different cultures and categories. Maturation was therefore significant as age represents more opportunity to build on experience.
Teachers can use this understanding of categorization and discovery learning to stimulate growth by focusing on encouraging, aiding and allowing students to uncover a topic on their own through organized activities. On my recent practicum, the class was studying plant adaptations. The teacher created an experiment where each student’s planted some seeds in a petri dish. The petri dishes were placed under different light conditions and the students discovered how the plants adapted to each variant light source. They connected the information from the topic into the context of the experiment. To stimulate cognitive growth teachers have to know their students and what their interests are. During an observed English lesson, my associate teacher based the student’s activities off a class book that she read. While the students learnt new skills in writing they linked their work to the book, giving relevance and context to the skills.
Bruner believed as children’s cognitive development was based on making sense of information through their past knowledge and experiences. Anyone could learn anything as long as the instruction was organized appropriately. This implied that cognition was not fixed. It implied that every child could learn. In 1960 Bruner explained how this was possible with the concept of the ‘spiral curriculum’ (McLeod, 2008). Bruner emphasized that how learning is structured is more important than how it is taught. The first stage of the spiral curriculum was the idea of the subject being taught at its simplest level. Once the student gripped the subject at a level, the topic would be re-visited but with a gradual increase in difficulty, hence the spiral analogy. This produced cognitive growth as the student would have more past knowledge and experience to draw on to make sense of the new information. This meant that children at each level were problem-solving for themselves. The implication for teaching to stimulate cognitive growth was significant. A child could cognitively grow through the nurture of good teaching. To stimulate this a teacher would have to be willing to re-visit past topics to help their students. They would also have to believe that every child was capable of anything. Teachers therefore are limited not by the child’s ‘ability’ but by their expectation of them. Bruner believed that all children were capable of learning anything given the right experiences. To best stimulate cognitive growth, the teacher needed to teach children to their level and know when a child was ready for the next level. During my practicum, a child in the class had cerebral palsy which affected his cognitive development. The teacher did not let this affect her expectations for this child. He had a teacher aid in the classroom who assisted him at his level. Through careful organization of material and by breaking the topic into manageable parts, by the end of the week the child had enough previous knowledge to be able to be involved in the maths lessons with other children.
In 1966 Bruner introduced his ‘three modes of representation’ system (McLeod, 2008). This refers to a way in which information is stored in a person’s memory. Each mode is flexible, interchangeable and loosely sequential. The first stage is ‘enactive representation’. This was where cognitive growth occurred through action-based information, primarily through muscle memory and actively using materials (McLeod, 2008). If the inactive mode is the only one being used, then the learner could only demonstrate their knowledge by using their motor activity, for example, teaching someone to hold a cricket bat correctly is often demonstrated with the bat itself as it could not be explained using any symbolic medium. Iconic representations are the second stage, where people store information in the form of images, a mental picture, remembering certain diagrams or experiences (McLeod, 2008). The third mode of representation is ‘symbolic’ (McLeod, 2008). Information is stored through a code or symbol, such as words, mathematical symbols or other symbolic systems. This representation was more abstract than the other two and therefore was often the hardest stage for children to remember (Lutz & Huitt, 2004). During practicum, the associate teacher used a variety of ways to illustrate how to add doubles below 20. First, she got the children in circles on the ground that represented the equation. She then used counters and pictures to demonstrate how to solve the problems. Only then did she write out the equation symbolically. Enthusiastic participation on-task behaviour and accurate results seemed to provide evidence of successful student learning.
Cognitive development is difficult to study because we cannot see what is going on inside the minds of children. Bruner’s work reveals a mixture of nature and nurture. While all children are capable of learning their cognitive development can be enhanced by the learning experience the teacher provides. A key component of quality teaching therefore is providing varied and rich experience for all students.

Reference
Duchesne, S., McMaugh, A., Bochner S., & Krause K. (2013) 4th educational psychology for learning and teaching. Melbourne, Australia: Cengage Learning Australia Pty Limited.
Lutz, S., & Huitt, W. (2004) Connecting cognitive development and constructivism: Implications from theory for instruction and assessment. Constructivism in Human Sciences, 9(1), 67-90.
McLeod, S. (2008) Simply Psychology Bruner. Retrieved from: http://www.simplypsychology.org/bruner.html