Jerome Bruner's model of education immerses the learner in the role of the expert. He believes individuals learn best when they are active participants in their learning.
To incorporate this theory into your classroom apply the following concepts:
To incorporate this theory into your classroom apply the following concepts:
- Help the students become familiar with the subject. For example you may ask students what do scientists do? What rules do they follow? How do they record information? (Plan questions to ensure a variety of answers) You may watch a video, and assign students a focus on that video. For example what is the scientist doing, what methods, research, tools do they use?
- Engage the students in a simulation of that role. If it is a mathematical problem, incorporate that into a real world problem. Have the students observe and record changes/observations in the same way the expert would. After observing students should reflect with the following questions: What did you observe, what does this mean, what evidence supports this, how can we use our combined observation to make a generalization about this?
- Reflect on the discipline. "What did you learn about being a scientist/mathematician?"
- Continue to practice and reflect on your discipline.
Strengths to incorporating the Bruner Model:
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Limitations to incorporating the Bruner Model:
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Role Playing and Simulations within the classroom are yet another way to engage gifted learners in the educational experience. While Jerome Bruner's model can be modified for the non-gifted student, true role playing and simulations are generally reserved for the gifted student.
- Simulation brings the "Big Idea" alive and can be embedded into any classroom. Simulation simply means an emersive learning environment that models the problems and complexity of the real world.
- Students are provided a problem, a simple "role of the dice" may determine the fate of their "problem"
- Gifted students find this to be engaging, it allows them to experience learning in a whole new way.
Strengths to using Simulations in the classroom:
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Limitations to using Simulations in the classroom:
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