SPIRAL LEARNING- BRUNER'S APPROACH

The idea in spiral progression approach is to expose the learners into a wide variety of concepts/topics and disciplines, until they mastered it by studying it over and over again but with different deepening of complexity.

3 Key Principles Of The Spiral Curriculum

The spiral approach to curriculum has three key principles that sum up the approach nicely. The three principles are:

1. Cyclical:?Students should return to the same topic several times throughout their school career;
2. Increasing Depth:?Each time a student returns to the topic it should be learned at a deeper level and explore more complexity;
3. Prior Knowledge:?A student’s prior knowledge should be utilized when a topic is returned to so that they build from their foundations rather than starting anew.

Bruner, therefore, advocated for the use of a spiral curriculum with continuous repetition of the same fundamental ideas. The curriculum is comprised of three characteristics :

– Students revisit the same topic at regular intervals

– The complexity of the topic increases with each revisit

– The new learning has a relationship with previous learning

SCAFFOLDING: Teachers also use scaffolding, a term coined by Bruner. Teachers do this by structuring activities, based on students’ existing knowledge and in a way that helps them to reach the desired learning outcome. The teacher first demonstrates the process as the student watches. Then the teacher lets the student have a go, steps back, and offers support and feedback when needed.

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_approach

February 16, 2021?By?Jonas Koblin,