Jerome Bruner's Concept Attainment Model

What did you learned today? Whether you attended school or watched television, you learned something today. What was it? Our human evolution has been successful because of our ability to learn. Our species has learned how to make hunting tools, light bulbs, cars, and spaceships. We have developed medicines that cure brutal diseases. On average, one additional year of education raises the enterprise income by 5.5 percent in developing areas (Van der Sluis). But, are our current educational systems supporting us in our full development as learners? As of August 2015, the public schools in 42 states have adopted the Common Core standards (“Standards in your state.”). Common Core creates guidelines for teachers who are, in turn, responsible for …show more content…
In the Jerome Bruner’s Concept Attainment Model, the “teacher chooses a concept to be developed, student[s] generalize concept and create hypotheses, and students test and evaluate the hypotheses by applying their new understanding to a novel or extension task” (Jones, 67). The model was successful in multiple case studies in a variety of subjects on a range of age groups (66). This fact is not to suggest the model will fit every classroom, but simply to show the effectiveness of student led discussions and student collaboration. The students lead two of the three main components of the model. The only leading role the teacher possesses is choosing the concept. Otherwise the teacher focuses on giving feedback and scaffolding. When the students read the passage out loud at the case study Niagara University, the teacher took notes of the students thoughts, reactions, and interpretations. The professor would ask probing questions to enhance or deepen the student discussion. It was expected for students to explain their thinking in their own words, so naturally personalized hypotheses were developed. When the students transitioned into the third component of the model, it was mainly small group “student-discussion based and heavily reliant both on students’ interaction with each …show more content…
“Math class needs a makeover” In the Ted Talk, he describes the following math problem in a high school Algebra 2 textbook: A 7.00 kg bowling ball moves at 3.00m/s. How much kinetic energy does the bowling ball have? Students are provided with the formulaKE=mv2 . He argues that the students do not need any physics knowledge to answer this question correctly; they only need calculation skills. When the problems in the students textbooks pave an easy path to the answer, they begin to expect each problem they encounter to have a smooth path too, and if the resolution does not come quickly and easily, students give up in frustration (Meyer). The current education system is creating impatient students. The students’ impatience was apparent in Dr. Neale’s classroom at Community School of Davidson. In the pre- calculus class, they were learning about the tangent graph. The students were struggling to create the tangent graph from their basic knowledge of the sine and cosine graph. After a few minutes a student said, “Why can’t we just plug it into a calculator?” Dr. Neale responded, “Just plugging it into the calculator doesn’t teach you squat. Let’s understand something here,” (Neale). Dr. Neale battles the eagerness for students to turn to a calculator or formula because it lacks math reasoning and math processing. Dr. Neale wants the students to understand why the graph