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Jerome Bruner

Jerome Bruner

Jerome S. Bruner (b. 1 October 1915) is an American psychologist, who has contributed to cognitive learning theory in educational psychology. Bruner's ideas are based on categorization. "To perceive is to categorize, to conceptualize is to categorize, to learn is to form categories, to make decisions is to categorize." Bruner maintains people interpret the world in terms of its similarities and differences. Similar to Bloom's Taxonomy Bruner suggests a system of coding in which people form a hierarchical arrangement of related categories. Each successively higher level of categories becomes more specific, echoing Benjamin Bloom's understanding of knowledge acquisition as well as the related idea of instructional scaffolding. He has also suggested that there are two primary modes of thought: the narrative mode and the paradigmatic mode. In narrative thinking, the mind engages in sequential, action-oriented, detail-driven thought. In paradigmatic thinking, the mind transcends particularities to achieve systematic, categorical cognition. In the former case, thinking takes the form of stories and "gripping drama." In the latter, thinking is structured as propositions linked by logical operators.

The Narrative Construction of Reality

In 1991, Bruner published an article in Critical Inquiry entitled "The Narrative Construction of Reality." In this article, he argued that the mind structures its sense of reality through mediation through "cultural products, like language and other symbolic systems" (3). He specifically focuses on the idea of narrative as one of these cultural products. He defines narrative in terms of ten things: #Narratiove diachronicity: The notion that narratives take place over some sense of time #Particularity: The idea that narratives deal with particular events, although some events may be left vague and general. #Intentional state entailment: The concept that characters within a narrative have "beliefs, desiures, theories, values, and so on" (7). #Hermeneutic composability: The theory that narratives are that which can be interpreted in terms of their role as a selected series of events that constitute a "story." See also Hermeneutics #Canonicity and breach: The claim that stories are about something unusual happening that "breaches" the canonical (i.e. normal) state. #Referentiality: The principle that a story in some way references reality, although not in a direct way that offers verisimilitude. #Genericness: The flipside particularity, this is the characteristic of narrative whereby the story can be classified as a genre. #Normativeness: The observation that narrative in some way supposes a claim about how one ought to act. This follows from canonicity and breach. #Context sensitivity and negotiability: Related hermeneutic composability, this is the characteristic whereby narrative requires a negotiated role between author or text and reader, including the assigning of a context to the narrative, and ideas like suspension of disbelief. #Narrative accrual: Finally, the idea that stories are cumulative, that is, that new stories follow from older ones. Bruner observes that these ten characteristics at once describe narrative and the reality constructed and posited by narrative, which in turn teaches us about the nature of reality as constructed by the human mind via narrative.

Bibliography

Books


- Toward a Theory of Instruction (1966)
- Actual Minds, Possible Worlds (1986)
- Acts of Meaning (1990)
- The Culture of Education (1996)

Articles


- Wood, D., Bruner, J., & Ross, G. (1976). The role of tutoring in problem solving. Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, 17, 89-100. (Addresses the concept of instructional scaffolding.)
- "The Narrative Construction of Reality" (1991). Critical Inquiry, 18:1, 1-21. Bruner, Jerome Bruner, Jerome Bruner, Jerome

1 October

October 1 is the 274th day of the year (275th in Leap years). There are 91 days remaining.

Events


- 331 BC - Alexander the Great defeats Darius III of Persia in the Battle of Gaugamela.
- 959 - Edgar the Peaceable becomes king of all England.
- 965 - John XIII becomes Pope.
- 1788 - Nguyen Hue declares himself emperor of Viet Nam.
- 1791 - First session of the French Legislative Assembly.
- 1795 - Belgium is conquered by France.
- 1800 - Spain cedes Louisiana to France via the Treaty of San Ildefonso.
- 1811 - The first steamboat to sail the Mississippi River arrives in New Orleans, Louisiana.
- 1814 - Opening of the Congress of Vienna, intended to redraw the Europe's political map after the defeat of Napoleon the previous spring.
- 1829 - South African College is founded in Cape Town, South Africa; later to become the University of Cape Town.
- 1843 - News of the World began publication in London.
- 1847 - German inventor and industrialist Werner von Siemens founds Siemens AG & Halske.
- 1854 - The watch company founded in 1850 in Roxbury by Aaron Lufkin Dennison relocates to Waltham, Massachusetts, to become the Waltham Watch Company, a pioneer in the American System of Watch Manufacturing.
- 1869 - Austria issues the world's first postcards.
- 1880 - John Philip Sousa becomes leader of the United States Marine Corps Band.
- 1880 - First electric lamp factory opened by Thomas Edison.
- 1885 - United States begins special-delivery mail service.
- 1886 - The U.S. mint in Carson City, Nevada, closes.
- 1887 - Baluchistan conquered by the British Empire.
- 1890 - The Yosemite National Park is established by the U.S. Congress.
- 1891 - In the U.S. state of California, Stanford University opens its doors.
- 1898 - Czar Nicholas II expels Jews from major Russian cities.
- 1898 - The Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration is founded under the name k.u.k. Exportakademie.
- 1903 - Baseball: The Boston Americans play the Pittsburgh Pirates in the first game of the modern World Series.
- 1905 - The worker František Pavlík gets killed in a demonstration in Prague, inspiring Leoš Janáček to the piano composition named 1. X. 1905. (PS: this date might be Julian calendar, to be checked)
- 1908 - Ford introduces the Model T car.
- 1910 - A large bomb destroys the Los Angeles Times building in downtown Los Angeles, California, killing 21.
- 1918 - World War I: Arab forces under T. E. Lawrence (aka "Lawrence of Arabia") capture Damascus.
- 1928 - The Soviet Union introduces its first Five-Year Plan.
- 1931 - The George Washington Bridge linking New Jersey and New York opens.
- 1931 - The original Waldorf-Astoria Hotel is opened in New York.
- 1936 - Francisco Franco is named head of the Nationalist government of Spain.
- 1938 - Germany annexes the Sudetenland.
- 1940 - The Pennsylvania Turnpike, often considered the first superhighway in the United States, opens to traffic.
- 1943 - World War II: Naples falls to Allied soldiers.
- 1946 - Nazi leaders sentenced at Nuremberg Trials.
- 1949 - The People's Republic of China is declared by Mao Zedong.
- 1949 - First rectangular television tubes manufactured by Kimble Glass.
- 1957 - First appearance of "In God We Trust" on U.S. paper currency.
- 1958 - NASA created to replace NACA.
- 1960 - Nigeria gains independence from the United Kingdom.
- 1961 - East and West Cameroon merge as Federal Republic of Cameroon.
- 1961 - Baseball: Roger Maris sets new record for most home runs in a single season with 61, surpassing Babe Ruth's previous mark of 60.
- 1963 - California State Board of Education created.
- 1964 - The Free Speech Movement is launched on the campus of University of California, Berkeley.
- 1964 - Japanese Shinkansen (or, "bullet trains") begin high-speed rail service from Tokyo to Osaka.
- 1965 - General Suharto crushes an attempted coup in Indonesia.
- 1968 - The Guyanese government takes over the British Guiana Broadcasting Service (BGBS).
- 1969 - The Concorde supersonic transport plane breaks the sound barrier for the first time.
- 1971 - Walt Disney World opens in Orlando, Florida, United States.
- 1974 - The Watergate trial begins
- 1975 - The Seychelles gain internal self-government.
- 1975 - The Ellice Islands split from Gilbert Islands and take the name Tuvalu.
- 1975 - Thrilla in Manila: Muhammad Ali defeats Joe Frazier in a boxing match in Manila, Philippines.
- 1977 - Brazilian soccer star Pelé retires.
- 1978 - The Voltaic Revolutionary Communist Party is founded.
- 1979 - The United States returns sovereignty of the Panama canal to Panama.
- 1982 - Helmut Kohl replaces Helmut Schmidt as Chancellor of Germany through a Constructive Vote of No Confidence.
- 1982 - EPCOT Center opens at Walt Disney World in Florida, United States.
- 1983 - The Horizons pavilion opens at EPCOT Center on the first anniversary of the park.
- 1985 - The Israeli air force bombs PLO Headquarters in Tunis.
- 1988 - Mikhail Gorbachev is named head of the Supreme Soviet.
- 1998 - ICANN assumes responsibility for selling top-level domain names for the Internet.
- 2004 - Baseball: Seattle Mariners outfielder Ichiro Suzuki makes his 258th hit of the season, breaking George Sisler's 84-year-old single-season record.
- 2005 - Another bombing happens in Bali, almost three years to the anniversary of a similar event which occurred in 2002.

Births


- 1990 - Roman Coronado III of Nimitz Cross Country and Basketball He is very very Famous
- 1207 - King Henry III of England (d. 1272)
- 1471 - King Frederick I of Denmark (d. 1533)
- 1507 - Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola, Italian architect (d. 1573)
- 1540 - Johann Jakob Grynaeus, Swiss protestant clergyman (d. 1617)
- 1620 - Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem, Dutch painter (d. 1683)
- 1644 - Alessandro Stradella, Italian composer (d. 1682)
- 1671 - Guido Grandi, Italian mathematician (d. 1742)
- 1685 - Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1740)
- 1691 - Arthur Onslow, English politician (d. 1768)
- 1730 - Richard Stockton, American attorney, signer of the Declaration of Independence (d. 1781)
- 1760 - William Thomas Beckford, English writer and politician (d. 1844)
- 1771 - Pierre Baillot, French violinist and composer (d. 1842)
- 1791 - Sergei Aksakov, Russian writer (d. 1859)
- 1865 - Paul Dukas, French composer (d. 1935)
- 1881 - William Boeing, American engineer (d. 1956)
- 1885 - Louis Untermeyer, American author (d. 1977)
- 1878 - Othmar Spann, Austrian philosopher and economist (d. 1950)
- 1887 - Violet Jessop, Titanic survivor (d. 1971)
- 1890 - Stanley Holloway, British actor (d. 1982)
- 1896 - Liaquat Ali Khan, first Prime Minister of Pakistan, (d. 1951)
- 1896 - Ted Healy, American actor and comedian (d. 1937)
- 1899 - Ernest Haycox, American writer (d. 1950)
- 1900 - Tom Goddard, English cricketer (d. 1966)
- 1903 - Vladimir Horowitz, Ukrainian pianist (d. 1989)
- 1904 - Otto Robert Frisch, Austrian-born physicist (d. 1979)
- 1904 - A.K. Gopalan, Indian communist leader (d. 1977)
- 1909 - Sam Yorty, Mayor of Los Angeles, California (d. 1998)
- 1910 - Bonnie Parker, American outlaw (d. 1934)
- 1914 - Daniel J. Boorstin, American historian, writer, and Librarian of Congress (d. 2004)
- 1920 - Walter Matthau, American actor (d. 2000)
- 1921 - James Whitmore, American actor
- 1924 - Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
- 1924 - William Rehnquist, former Chief Justice of the United States (d. 2005)
- 1925 - Bob Boyd, baseball player (d. 2004)
- 1926 - Roger Williams, American pianist
- 1927 - Tom Bosley, American actor
- 1928 - Laurence Harvey, Lithuanian-born actor (d. 1973)
- 1928 - George Peppard, American actor (d. 1994)
- 1930 - Sir Richard Harris, Irish actor (d. 2002)
- 1931 - Sylvano Bussotti, Italian composer
- 1932 - Albert Collins, blues guitarist (d.1993)
- 1935 - Julie Andrews, British actress and singer
- 1936 - Stella Stevens, American actress
- 1939 - George Archer, American golfer (d. 2005)
- 1942 - Frank Gardner, Australian formula one driver
- 1945 - Rod Carew, Panamanian Major League Baseball player
- 1947 - Aaron Ciechanover, Israeli biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
- 1947 - Stephen Collins, American actor
- 1948 - Cub Koda, American singer (d. 2000)
- 1949 - Isaac Bonewits, American author
- 1950 - Randy Quaid, American actor
- 1954 - Martin Strel, Slovenian swimmer
- 1956 - Theresa May, British politician
- 1962 - Esai Morales, American actor
- 1963 - Mark McGwire, baseball player
- 1964 - Harry Hill, British comedian
- 1964 - Jonathan Sarfati, Australian-born chess player, scientist, and author
- 1965 - Andreas Keller, German field hockey player
- 1966 - George Weah, Liberian politician and football player
- 1968 - Jon Guenther, American author
- 1979 - Rudi Johnson, American football player
- 1985 - Dizzee Rascal, British musician

Deaths


- 1040 - Alan III, Duke of Brittany (poisoned) (b. 997)
- 1310 - Beatrice of Burgundy, Lady of Bourbon (b. 1257)
- 1404 - Pope Boniface IX (b. 1356)
- 1499 - Marsilio Ficino, Italian philosopher (b. 1433)
- 1500 - John Alcock, English Catholic bishop
- 1567 - Pietro Carnesecchi, Italian humanist (b. 1508)
- 1570 - Frans Floris, Flemish painter (b. 1520)
- 1574 - Marten Jacobszoon Heemskerk van Veen, Dutch painter (b. [1498]])
- 1578 - Don John of Austria, military leader (b. 1547)
- 1609 - Giammateo Asola, Italian composer
- 1684 - Pierre Corneille, French author (b. 1606)
- 1693 - Pedro Abarca, Spanish theologian (b. 1619)
- 1708 - John Blow, British composer (b. 1649)
- 1768 - Robert Simson, Scottish mathematician (b. 1687)
- 1864 - Rose Greenhow, American Confederate spy (b. 1817)
- 1876 - James Lick, California land baron (b. 1796)
- 1901 - Abdur Rahman Khan, Afghan amir
- 1929 - Antoine Bourdelle, French sculptor (b. 1861)
- 1955 - Charles Christie, American film studio owner (b. 1880)
- 1985 - E. B. White, American author (b. 1899)
- 1988 - Sacheverell Sitwell, English writer (b. 1897)
- 1992 - Petra Kelly, German politician (b. 1947)
- 1997 - Jerome H. Lemelson, American inventor (b. 1923)
- 2002 - Walter Annenberg, publisher and philanthropist
- 2004 - Richard Avedon, American photographer (b. 1923)
- 2004 - Bruce Palmer, Canadian musician (Buffalo Springfield) (b. 1946)

Holidays and observances


- RC Church - Feast days of Saint Thérèse de Lisieux; formerly of Saint Bavo and Saint Remigius Also see October 1 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
- People's Republic of China - National Day (1949)
- Republic of Cyprus - Independence Day (from Britain, 1960)
- Nigeria - Independence Day (from Britain, 1960)
- San Marino - two Captains Regent, elected by parliament, take office for six months.
- Tuvalu - Independence Day (from Gilbert Islands (Kiribati), 1975)
- World Vegetarian Day

External links


- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/1 BBC: On This Day] ----- September 30 - October 2 - September 1 - November 1 – more historical anniversaries ko:10월 1일 ja:10月1日 simple:October 1 th:1 ตุลาคม

United States

:For alternative meanings, see the disambiguation page for US, USA, United States, or American. The United States of America is a federal democratic republic situated primarily in central North America. It comprises 50 states and one federal district, and has several territories. It is also referred to, with varying formality, as the United States, the U.S., the U.S.A., the States, or simply and most commonly, America. The official founding date of the United States is July 4, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress—representing thirteen British colonies—adopted the Declaration of Independence. However, the structure of the government was profoundly changed in 1788, when the states replaced the Articles of Confederation with the United States Constitution. The date on which each of the fifty states adopted the Constitution is typically regarded as the date that state "entered the Union" (became part of the United States). Since the mid-20th century, following World War II, the United States has emerged as a dominant global influence in economic, political, military, scientific, technological, and cultural affairs.

Geography and climate

The United States shares land borders with Canada (to the north) and Mexico (to the south), and territorial water boundaries with Canada, Russia, the Bahamas, and numerous smaller nations. It is otherwise bounded by the Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea, in the west; the Arctic Ocean, in the northernmost areas; and the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea, in the eastern and southeastern areas. Forty-eight of the states are in the single region between Canada and Mexico; this group is referred to, with varying precision and formality, as the continental or contiguous United States, sometimes abbreviated CONUS, and as the Lower 48. Alaska, which is not included in the term contiguous United States, is at the northwestern end of North America, separated from the Lower 48 by Canada. The archipelago of Hawaii is in the Pacific Ocean. The capital city, Washington, District of Columbia is a federal district located on land donated by the state of Maryland. (Virginia also donated land, but it was returned in 1847.) The United States also has overseas territories with varying levels of independence and organization. When inland water is included in the total area, only Russia and Canada are larger than the United States; if inland water is excluded, China ranks third and the U.S. ranks fourth. The United States' total area is 3,718,711 square miles (9,631,418 km²), of which land makes up 3,537,438 square miles (9,161,923 km²) and water makes up 181,273 square miles (469,495 km²). The United States' landscape is one of the most varied among those of the world's nations: among its many features are temperate forestland and rolling hills, on the east coast; mangrove, in Florida; the Great Plains, in the center of the country; the Mississippi–Missouri river system; the Great Lakes, four of the five of which are shared with Canada; the Rocky Mountains, west of the Great Plains; deserts and temperate coastal zones, west of the Rocky Mountains; and temperate rain forests, in the Pacific northwest. Alaska's tundra, and the volcanic, tropical islands of Hawaii add to the geographic diversity. Hawaii The climate varies along with the landscape, from tropical in Hawaii and southern Florida to tundra in Alaska and atop some of the highest mountains. Most of the North and East experience a temperate continental climate, with warm summers and cold winters. Most of the South experiences a subtropical humid climate with mild winters and long, hot, humid summers. Rainfall decreases markedly from the humid forests of the Eastern Great Plains to the semi-arid shortgrass prairies on the high plains abutting the Rocky Mountains. Arid deserts, including the Mojave, extend through the lowlands and valleys of the southwest, from westernmost Texas to California and northward throughout much of Nevada. Some parts of California have a Mediterranean climate. Rainforests line the windward mountains of the Pacific Northwest from Oregon to Alaska.

History

American history started with the migration of people from Asia across the Bering land bridge approximately 12,000 years ago following large animals that they hunted into the Americas. These Native Americans left evidence of their presence in petroglyphs, burial mounds, and other artifacts. It is estimated that 2-9 million people lived in the territory now occupied by the U.S. before European contact, and the subsequent introduction of foreign diseases such as small pox that greatly diminished the native populations. Some advanced societies were the Anasazi of the southwest, who inhabited Chaco Canyon, and the Woodland Indians, who built Cahokia, located near present-day St Louis, a city with a population of 40,000 at its peak in AD 1200. Vikings first visited North America around 1000, but did not settle permanently. Following the discovery voyages of Christopher Columbus around 1492, other Europeans began to explore and settle there. During the 1500s and 1600s, the Spanish settled parts of the present-day Southwest and Florida, founding St. Augustine, Florida in 1565 and Santa Fe (in what is now New Mexico) in 1607. The first successful English settlement was at Jamestown, Virginia, also in 1607. Within the next two decades, several Dutch settlements, including New Amsterdam (the predecessor to New York City), were established in what are now the states of New York and New Jersey. In 1637, Sweden established a colony at Fort Christina (in what is now Delaware), but lost the settlement to the Dutch in 1655. This was followed by extensive British settlement of the east coast. The British colonists remained relatively undisturbed by their home country until after the French and Indian War, when France ceded Canada and the Great Lakes region to Britain. Britain then imposed taxes on the 13 colonies, widely regarded by the colonists as unfair because they were denied representation in the British Parliament. Tensions between Britain and the colonists increased, and the thirteen colonies eventually rebelled against British rule. British Parliament, George Washington (1789-1797).]] In 1776, the 13 colonies split from Great Britain and formed the United States, the world's first constitutional and democratic federal republic, after their Declaration of Independence of that year, and the Revolutionary War (1775 to 1783). The original political structure was a confederation in 1777, ratified in 1781 as the Articles of Confederation. After long debate, this was supplanted by the Constitution in 1789, forming a more centralized federal government. Prior to all these was the Albany Congress in 1754, in which a union was first seriously proposed. From early colonial times, there was a shortage of labor, which encouraged unfree labor, particularly indentured servitude and slavery. In the mid-19th century, a major division occurred in the United States over the issue of states' rights and the expansion of slavery. The northern states had become opposed to slavery, while the southern states saw it as necessary for the continued success of southern agriculture and wanted it expanded to the territories. Several federal laws were passed in an attempt to settle the dispute, including the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850. The dispute reached a crisis in 1861, when seven southern states seceded1 from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America, leading to the Civil War. Soon after the war began, four more southern states seceded. During the war, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, mandating the freedom of all slaves in states in rebellion, though full emancipation did not take place until after the end of the war in 1865, the dissolution of the Confederacy, and the Thirteenth Amendment took effect. The Civil War effectively ended the question of a state's right to secede, and is widely accepted as a major turning point after which the federal government became more powerful than state governments. Thirteenth Amendment). The title of the painting, from a 1726 poem by Bishop Berkeley, was a phrase often quoted in the era of Manifest Destiny, expressing a widely held belief that civilization had steadily moved westward throughout history. [http://americanart.si.edu/t2go/1lw/1931.6.1.html (more)] ]] During the 19th century, many new states were added to the original 13 as the nation expanded across the continent. Manifest Destiny was a philosophy that encouraged westward expansion in the United States. As the population of the Eastern states grew and as a steady increase of immigrants entered the country, settlers moved steadily westward across North America. In the process, the U.S. displaced most American Indian nations. This displacement of American Indians continues to be a matter of contention in the U.S. with many tribes attempting to assert their original claims to various lands. In some areas American Indian populations were reduced by foreign diseases contracted through contact with European settlers, and US settlers acquired those emptied lands. In other instances American Indians were removed from their traditional lands by force. Though some would say the U.S. was not a colonial power until the Spanish-American War when it acquired Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, the dominion exercised over land in North America the United States claimed is essentially colonial. The Philippines became independent in 1946. During this period, the nation also became an industrial power. This continued into the 20th century, which has been termed "the American Century" because of the nation's overriding influence on the world. The US became a center for innovation and technological development; major technologies that America either developed or was greatly involved in improving include the telephone, television, computer, the Internet, nuclear weapons, nuclear power, aviation, and aeronautics. In addition to the Civil War, another major traumatic experience for the nation was the Great Depression (1929 to 1939). The nation has also taken part in several major foreign wars, including World War I and World War II (in both of which the US later joined the Allies). During the Cold War, the US was a major player in the Korean War and Vietnam War, and, along with the Soviet Union, was considered one of the world's two "superpowers". With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US emerged as the world's leading economic and military power. Beginning in the 1990s, the United States became very involved in police actions and peacekeeping, including actions in Kosovo, Haiti, Somalia and Liberia, and the first Persian Gulf War driving Iraq out of Kuwait. After attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, the United States and other allied nations found themselves involved in what has come to be called the "War on Terrorism," which has primarily encompassed military actions in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Government

Iraq of the United States.]]

Republic and suffrage

The United States is an example of a constitutional republic, with a government composed of and operating through a set of limited powers imposed by its design and enumerated in the United States Constitution. Specifically, the nation operates as a presidential democracy. There are three levels of government: federal, state, and local. Officials of each of these levels are either elected by eligible voters via secret ballot or appointed by other elected officials. Americans enjoy almost universal suffrage from the age of 18 regardless of race, sex, or wealth. There are some limits, however: felons are disenfranchised and in some states former felons are likewise. Furthermore, the national representation of territories and the federal district of Washington, DC in Congress is limited: residents of the District of Columbia are subject to federal laws and federal taxes but their only Congressional representative is a non-voting delegate.

Federal government

The federal government is the national government, comprising the Legislative Branch (led by Congress), the Executive Branch (led by the President), and the Judicial Branch (led by the Supreme Court). These three branches were designed to apply checks and balances on each other. The Constitution limits the powers of the federal government to defense, foreign affairs, the issuing and management of currency, the management of trade and relations between the states, and the protection of human rights. In addition to these explicitly stated powers, the federal government—with the assistance of the Supreme Court—has gradually extended these powers into such areas as welfare and education, on the basis of the "necessary and proper" clause of the Constitution.

The Congress

necessary and proper The Congress of the United States is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, comprising the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House of Representatives consists of 435 members, each of whom represents a congressional district and serves for a two-year term. House seats are apportioned among the states by population; in contrast, each state has two Senators, regardless of population. There are a total of 100 senators, who serve six-year terms. The powers of Congress are limited to those enumerated in the Constitution; all other powers are reserved to the states and the people. The Constitution also includes the necessary-and-proper clause, which grants Congress the power to "make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers."

The President

necessary-and-proper clause At the top level of the executive branch is the President of the United States. The President and Vice-President are elected as 'running mates' for four-year terms by the Electoral College, for which each state, as well as the District of Columbia, is allocated a number of seats based on its representation (or ostensible representation, in the case of D. C.) in both houses of Congress (see U.S. Electoral College). The relationship between the President and the Congress reflects that between the English monarchy and parliament at the time of the framing of the United States Constitution. Congress can legislate to constrain the President's executive power, even with respect to his or her command of the armed forces; however, this power is used only very rarely—a notable example was the constraint placed on President Richard Nixon's strategy of bombing Cambodia during the Vietnam War. The President cannot directly propose legislation, and must rely on supporters in Congress to promote his or her legislative agenda. The President's signature is required to turn congressional bills into law; in this respect, the President has the power—only occasionally used—to veto congressional legislation. Congress can override a presidential veto with a two-thirds majority vote in both houses. The ultimate power of Congress over the President is that of impeachment or removal of the elected President through a House vote, a Senate trial, and a Senate vote. The threat of using this power has had major political ramifications in the cases of Presidents Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton. The President makes around 2,000 executive appointments, including members of the Cabinet and ambassadors, which must be approved by the Senate; the President can also issue executive orders and pardons, and has other Constitutional duties, among them the requirement to give a State of the Union address to Congress once a year. Although the President's constitutional role may appear to be constrained, in practice, the office carries enormous prestige that typically eclipses the power of Congress: the Presidency has justifiably been referred to as 'the most powerful office in the world'. The Vice President is first in the line of succession, and is the President of the Senate ex officio, with the ability to cast a tie-breaking vote. The members of the President's Cabinet are responsible for administering the various departments of state, including the Department of Defense, the Justice Department, and the State Department. These departments and department heads have considerable regulatory and political power, and it is they who are responsible for executing federal laws and regulations. George W. Bush is the 43rd President, currently serving his second term.

The Courts

George W. Bush The highest court is the Supreme Court, which consists of nine justices. The court deals with federal and constitutional matters, and can declare legislation made at any level of the government as unconstitutional, nullifying the law and creating precedent for future law and decisions. Below the Supreme Court are the courts of appeals, and below them in turn are the district courts, which are the general trial courts for federal law. Separate from, but not entirely independent of, this federal court system are the individual court systems of each state, each dealing with its own laws and having its own judicial rules and procedures. A case may be appealed from a state court to a federal court only if there is a federal question; the supreme court of each state is the final authority on the interpretation of that state's laws and constitution.

State and local governments

supreme court of each state. Note that Alaska and Hawaii are shown at different scales, and that the Aleutian Islands and the uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are omitted from this map.]] The state governments have the greatest influence over people's daily lives. Each state has its own written constitution and has different laws. There are sometimes great differences in law and procedure between the different states, concerning issues such as property, crime, health, and education. The highest elected official of each state is the Governor. Each state also has an elected legislature (bicameral in every state except Nebraska), whose members represent the different parts of the state. Of note is the New Hampshire legislature, which is the third-largest legislative body in the English-speaking world, and has one representative for every 3,000 people. Each state maintains its own judiciary, with the lowest level typically being county courts, and culminating in each state supreme court, though sometimes named differently. In some states, supreme and lower court justices are elected by the people; in others, they are appointed, as they are in the federal system. The institutions that are responsible for local government are typically town, city, or county boards, making laws that affect their particular area. These laws concern issues such as traffic, the sale of alcohol, and keeping animals. The highest elected official of a town or city is usually the mayor. In New England, towns operate directly democratically, and in some states, such as Rhode Island and Connecticut, counties have little or no power, existing only as geographic distinctions. In other areas, county governments have more power, such as to collect taxes and maintain law enforcement agencies.

Political divisions

With the Declaration of Independence, the thirteen colonies proclaimed themselves to be nation states modeled after the European states of the time. Although considered as sovereigns initially, under the Articles of Confederation of 1781 they entered into a "Perpetual Union" and created a fully sovereign federal state, delegating certain powers to the national Congress, including the right to engage in diplomatic relations and to levy war, while each retaining their individual sovereignty, freedom and independence. But the national government proved too ineffective, so the administrative structure of the government was vastly reorganized with the United States Constitution of 1789. Under this new union, the continued status of the individual states as sovereign nation states fell into dispute in 1861, as several states attempted to secede from the union; in response, then-President Abraham Lincoln claimed that such secession was illegal, and the result was the American Civil War. Since the Union victory in 1865, the independent status of the individual states has not been broached again by any state, and the status of each state within the union has been deemed by mainstream officials and academics to be settled as being subordinate to the union as a whole. In subsequent years, the number of states grew steadily due to western expansion, the purchase of lands by the national government from other nation states, and the subdivision of existing states, resulting in the current total of 50. The states are generally divided into smaller administrative regions, including counties, cities and townships. The United States–Canadian border is the longest undefended political boundary in the world. The U.S. is divided into three distinct sections:
- the "continental United States," also known as "the Lower 48" and more accurately termed the conterminous, coterminous or contiguous United States
- Alaska, which is physically connected only to Canada
- the archipelago of Hawaii, in the central Pacific Ocean. The United States also holds several other territories, districts, and possessions, notably the federal district of the District of Columbia, which is the nation's capital, and several overseas insular areas, the most significant of which are American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the United States Virgin Islands. The Palmyra Atoll is the United States' only incorporated territory; it is unorganized and uninhabited. The United States Navy has held a base at a portion of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 1898. The United States government possesses a lease to this land, which only mutual agreement or United States abandonment of the area can terminate. The present Cuban government of Fidel Castro disputes this arrangement, claiming Cuba was not truly sovereign at the time of the signing. The United States argues this point moot because Cuba apparently ratified the lease post-revolution, and with full sovereignty, when it cashed one rent check in accordance with the disputed treaty.

Foreign relations and military

sovereign] The immense military and economic dominance of the United States has made foreign relations an especially important topic in its politics, with considerable concern about the image of the United States throughout the world. Reactions towards the United States by other nationalities are often strong, ranging from uninhibited admiration and mimicking of all things American to anti-Americanism. US foreign policy has swung about several times over the course of its history between the poles of strict isolationism and imperialism and everywhere in between. Three of the nation's four military branches are administered by the Department of Defense: the Army, the Navy (including the Marine Corps), and the Air Force. The Coast Guard falls under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime, but is placed under the Department of the Navy in time of war. The combined United States armed forces consist of 1.4 million active duty personnel, along with several hundred thousand each in the Reserves and the National Guard. Military conscription ended in 1973. The United States Armed forces are considered to be the most powerful military (of any sort) on Earth and their force projection capabilities are unrivaled by any other nation. The 2005 defense budget amounted to $401.7 billion, which is an increase of 4% over 2004 and of 35% since 2001. Over 50% of that number is spent in research & development. (For comparison, in 2004 the European Union (considered as the second-largest military force) had a combined total of 1.6 million troops, and a defense budget of €160 billion, with less than 10% of that being spent on R&D.)

Largest cities

The United States has dozens of major cities, including 11 of the 55 global cities of all types — with three "alpha" global cities: New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago. The figures expressed below are for populations within city limits. A different ranking is evident when considering U.S. metro area populations, although the top three would be unchanged. Note that some cities not listed (such as Atlanta, Boston, Las Vegas, Miami, Nashville, New Orleans, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.) are still considered important on the basis of other factors and issues, including culture, economics, heritage, and politics. The twenty largest cities, based on the United States Census Bureau's 2004 estimates, are as follows:

Economy

The United States has the largest single-country economy in the world, with a per-capita gross domestic product of $40,100. In this market-oriented economy, private individuals and business firms make most of the decisions, and the federal and state governments buy needed goods and services predominantly in the private marketplace. gross domestic product The largest industry of the U.S. is now service, which employs roughly three quarters of the U.S. work force. The United States has many natural resources, including oil and gas, metals, and such minerals as gold, soda ash, and zinc. In agriculture, the U.S. is a top producer of, among other crops, corn, soy beans, and wheat; the United States is a net exporter of food. The U.S. manufacturing sector produces goods such as, cars, airplanes, steel, and electronics, among many others. Economic activity varies greatly from one part of the country to another, with many industries being largely dependent on a certain city or region; New York City is the center of the American financial, publishing, broadcasting, and advertising industries; Silicon Valley is the country’s primary location for high-technology companies, while Los Angeles is the most important center for film production. The Midwest is known for its reliance on manufacturing and heavy industry, with Detroit, Michigan, serving as the center of the American automotive industry; the Great Plains are known as the "breadbasket" of America for their tremendous agricultural output; the intermountain region serves as a mining hub and natural gas resource; the Pacific Northwest for fish and timber, while Texas is largely associated with the oil industry; the Southeast is a major hub for both medical research and the textiles industry. Several countries continue to link their currency to the dollar or even use it as a currency (such as Ecuador), although this practice has subsided since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system. Many markets are also quoted in dollars, such as those of oil and gold. The dollar is also the predominant reserve currency in the world, and more than half of global reserves are in dollars. The largest trading partner of the United States is Canada (19%), followed by China (12%), Mexico (11%), and Japan (8%). More than 50% of total trade is with these four countries. In 2003, the United States was ranked as the third most visited tourist destination in the world; its 40,400,000 visitors ranked behind France's 75,000,000 and Spain's 52,500,000. Labor unions have existed since the 19th century, and grew large and powerful from the 1930s to the 1950s. See Labor history of the United States. Since 1970 they have shrunk in the private sector and now cover fewer than 8% of the workers. However union membership has grown rapidly in the public sector, especially among teachers, nurses, police, postal workers, and municipal clerks. There have been few strikes in recent years. The United States' imports exceed exports by 80%, leading to an annual trade deficit of $700,000,000,000, or 6% of gross domestic product. It is the largest debtor nation in the world, with total gross foreign debt of over $13,000,000,000,000 (2005 estimate); and it absorbs more than 50% of global savings annually. Since the 1980s, the U.S. has increased the use of neoliberal economic policies that reduce government intervention and reduce the size of the welfare state, backing away from the more interventionist Keynsian economic policies that had been in favor since the Great Depression. As a result, the United States provides fewer government-delivered social welfare services than most industrialized nations, choosing instead to keep its tax burden lower and relying more heavily on the free market and private charities. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have minimum wages higher than the national level ($5.15 per-hour), including the highest, Washington State at $7.35. Twenty-six states are the same as the federal level; two--Ohio and Kansas--are below; and six do not have state laws. America's wealth is relatively highly concentrated. The average C.E.O. earns 500 times the typical amount a worker grosses, this is up from 25 times in the late 1970s. In terms of wealth the top 1% of Americans own 40% of all assets and 50.1% of the country's income goes to the top twenty percent of households. Average wages for the majority of employees have been largely stagnating since the 1970s. America's poverty line defined as a family of four earning less than $19,157 is at 12.7% of the general population. Approximately one out of every five children in the United States grows up below the official poverty line. Among racial groups; African Americans have the lowest median income while Asians had the highest. Regionally, the southern states had the lowest median incomes while the West Coast and New England had the highest. The current Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan remarked that the U.S.’s growing income inequality since the 1970s is, "not the type of thing which a democratic society - a capitalist democratic society - can really accept without addressing."[http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0614/p01s03-usec.html?s=itm] However, Greenspan also noted, "...you can look at the system and say it's got a lot of problems to it, and sure it does. It always has. But you can't get around the fact that this is the most extraordinarily successful economy in history."

Transportation

Alan Greenspan ]] Because the United States is a relatively young nation, most of the development of U.S. cities has taken place since the invention of the automobile. To link its vast territory, the United States built a network of high-capacity, high-speed highways, of which the most important element is the Interstate Highway system, commissioned in the 1950s by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and modeled after the German Autobahn. The United States also has a transcontinental rail system, which is used for moving freight across the lower forty-eight states. Passenger rail service is provided by Amtrak, which serves forty-six of the lower forty-eight states. Many cities in the United States have extensive mass-transit systems. New York City operates one of the world's largest and most heavily used subway systems. The regional rail and bus networks that extend into Long Island, New Jersey, Upstate New York, and Connecticut are among the most heavily used in the world. Air travel is often preferred for destinations over 300 miles (500 kilometers) away. In terms of passengers, seventeen of the world's thirty busiest airports in 2004 were in the U.S., including the world's busiest, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport; in terms of cargo, in the same year, twelve of the world's thirty busiest airports were in the U.S., including the world's busiest, Memphis International Airport. There are several major seaports in the United States; the three busiest are the Port of Los Angeles, California; the Port of Long Beach, California; and the Port of New York and New Jersey. Others include Houston, Texas; Charleston, South Carolina; Savannah, Georgia; Miami, Florida; Portland, Oregon; San Francisco, California; Boston, Massachusetts; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Seattle, Washington; plus, outside the contiguous forty-eight states, Anchorage, Alaska, and Honolulu, Hawaii.

Society

Demographics

Hawaii The mean center of the U.S. population continues to drift farther west and south. The fastest growing region is the western United States followed by the southern portion. According to Census 2000, the states that saw the greatest increases from 1990 were: Nevada (66.3%), Arizona (40%), Colorado (30.6%), Utah (29.6%), Idaho (28.5%), Georgia (26.4%), Florida (23.5%), Texas (22.8%), North Carolina (21.4%), and Washington (21.1%). [http://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/phc-t2/tab03.pdf]

Ethnicity and race

:Main article: Racial demographics of the United States The United States is a very racially diverse country. According to the 2000 census, it has 31 ethnic groups with at least one million members each, and numerous others represented in smaller amounts. The majority of Americans descend from white European immigrants who arrived at the establishment of the first colonies (most after Reconstruction). This majority--69.1% in 2000--decreases each year, and is expected to become a plurality within a few decades. The most frequently stated European ancestries are German (15.2%), Irish (10.8%), English (8.7%), Italian (5.6%) and Scandinavian (3.7%). Many immigrants also hail from Slavic countries such as Poland and Russia. Other significant immigrant populations came from eastern and southern Europe and French Canada. Russia Hispanics from Mexico and South and Central America are the largest minority group in the country, comprising 12.5% of the population (2000 census). People of Mexican descent made up 7.3% of the population in the 2000 census, and this proportion is expected to increase significantly in the coming decades. About 12.3% (2000 census) of the American people are African Americans (Blacks). African Americans are spread throughout the country, but their presence is largest in the South. Asian Americans--including Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders--are a third significant minority (3.7% of the population in 2000). Most Asian Americans are concentrated on the West Coast and Hawaii. The largest groups are immigrants or descendants of emigrants from the Philippines, China, India, Vietnam, South Korea, and Japan. Indigenous peoples in the United States, such as American Indians and Inuit, make up 0.9% of the population (2000 census). About 35% live on Indian reservations.

Religion

Polls estimate that just under 80 percent of Americans are Christians of various denominations. The other 20 percent comprises other religions such as Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism, other various faiths, and those without a specific religion. The United States is noteworthy among developed nations for its relatively high level of religiosity. According to a 2004 Gallup poll, about 44% of Americans attend a religious service at least once a week. However, this rate is not uniform across the country; attendance is more common in the Bible Belt—composed largely of Southern and Midwestern states—than in the Northeast and West Coast. In the Southern states, Baptists are the largest group, followed by Methodists; Roman Catholics are dominant in the Northeast and in large parts of the Midwest due to their being settled by descendants of Catholic immigrants from Europe (such as Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Poland) or other parts of North America (mainly Quebec and Puerto Rico). The rest of the country for the most part has a complex mixture of various Christian groups.

Education

West Coast's home at Monticello and the University of Virginia (library building shown above, and designed by Jefferson), the only collegiate campus on the list. Both sites are located in Charlottesville, Virginia.]] In the United States, education is a state, not federal, responsibility, and the laws and standards vary considerably. However, the federal government, through the Department of Education, is involved with funding of some programs and exerts some influence through its ability to control funding. In most states, all students must attend mandatory schooling starting with kindergarten, which children normally enter at age 5, and following through 12th grade, which is normally completed at age 18

Cognitive

The term cognition is used in several different loosely related ways. In psychology it is used to refer to the mental processes of an individual, with particular relation to a view that argues that the mind has internal mental states (such as beliefs, desires and intentions) and can be understood in terms of information processing, especially when a lot of abstraction or concretization is involved, or processes such as involving knowledge, expertise or learning for example are at work. It is also used in a wider sense to mean the act of knowing or knowledge, and may be interpreted in a social or cultural sense to describe the emergent development of knowledge and concepts within a group that culminate in both thought and action.

Cognition in mainstream psychology

The sort of mental processes described as cognitive or cognitive processes are largely influenced by research which has successfully used this paradigm in the past. Consequently this description tends to apply to processes such as memory, attention, perception, action, problem solving and mental imagery. Traditionally emotion was not thought of as a cognitive process. This division is now regarded as largely artificial, and much research is currently being undertaken to examine the cognitive psychology of emotion; research also includes one's awareness of strategies and methods of cognition, known as metacognition. Empirical research into cognition is usually scientific and quantitative, or involves creating models to describe or explain certain behaviours. While few people would deny that cognitive processes are the responsibility of the brain, a cognitive theory will not necessarily make any reference to the brain or any other biological process (compare neurocognitive). It may purely describe behaviour in terms of information flow or function. Relatively recent fields of study such as cognitive science and neuropsychology aim to bridge this gap, using cognitive paradigms to understand how the brain implements these information processing functions (see also cognitive neuroscience), or how pure information processing systems (e.g. computers) can simulate cognition (see also artificial intelligence). The branch of psychology which studies brain injury to infer normal cognitive function is called cognitive neuropsychology. The links of cognition to evolutionary demands are studied through the investigation of animal cognition. And conversly, evolutionary-based perspectives can inform hypotheses about cognitive functional systems evolutionary psychology. The theoretical school of thought derived from the cognitive approach is often called cognitivism. The phenomenal success of the cognitive approach can be seen by its current dominance as the core model in contemporary psychology (usurping behaviorism in the late 1950s).

Influence and influences

This success has led to it being applied in a wide range of areas:
- Psychology (particularly cognitive psychology), cognitive science and psychophysics
- Cognitive neuroscience, neurology and neuropsychology
- Behavioral economics and Behavioral finance
- Artificial intelligence and cybernetics
- Ergonomics and user interface design
- Philosophy of mind
- Linguistics, especially psycholinguistics and cognitive linguistics
- Economics, especially experimental economics
- Learning styles and Learning In its widest sense, the field is quite eclectic and draws from a number of areas, such as:
- Computer science and information theory, where attempts at artificial intelligence, collective intelligence and robotics focus on mimicking living beings' capacities for cognition, or applying the experience gathered in one place by one being to actions by another being elsewhere.
- Philosophy, epistemology and ontology
- Moral philosophy where it deals with the problem of ignorance, often seen as the opposite of cognition.
- Biology and neuroscience
- Mathematics and probability
- Physics, where observer effects are studied in depth mathematically.

Cognitive ontology

On an individual being level, these questions are studied by the separate fields above, but are also more integrated into cognitive ontology of various kinds. This challenges the older linguistically-dependent views of ontology, wherein one could debate being, perceiving, and doing, with no cognizance of innate human limits, varying human lifeways, and loyalties that may let a being "know" something (see qualia) that for others remains very much in doubt. On the level of an individual mind, an emergent behavior might be the formation of a new concept, 'bubbling up' from below the conscious level of the mind. A simple way of stating this is that beings preserve their own attention and are at every level concerned with avoiding interruption and distraction. Such cognitive specialization can be observed in particular in language, with adults markedly less able to hear or say distinctions made in languages to which they were not exposed in youth.

Cognition as compression

By the 1980s, researchers in the Engineering departments of the University of Leeds, UK hypothesized that 'Cognition is a form of compression', i.e., cognition was an economic, not just a philosophical or a psychological process; in other words, skill in the process of cognition confers a competitive advantage. An implication of this view is that choices about what to cognize are being made at all levels from the neurological expression up to species-wide priority setting; in other words, the compression process is a form of optimization. This is a force for self-organizing behavior; thus we have the opportunity to see samples of emergent behavior at each successive level, from individual, to groups of individuals, to formal organizations, to societies.

Cognition as a social process

In multiple observations, some dating back to antiquity, language acquisition in human children, fails to emerge unless the children are exposed to language. Thus 'language acquisition' is an example of an 'emergent behavior', which in fact requires a narrow, yet evolutionarily reliably occurring, set of inputs. In this case, the individual is made up of a set of mechanisms 'expecting' such input form the social world. In education, for instance, which has the explicit task in society of developing child cognition, choices are made regarding the environment and permitted action that lead to a formed experience. This is in turn affected by the risk or cost of providing these, for instance, those associated with a playground or swimming pool or field trip. The macro-choices made by the political economy in effect will be extremely influential on the micro-choices made by the teachers or children. So at least on this level, there is feedback between the economic choice and the psychology of the activity. In social cognition, face perception in human babies emerges by the age of two months.

Cognition in a cultural context

face perception One famous image, Earthrise, taken during Apollo 8, the first Apollo mission to the Moon, shows planet Earth in a single photograph. Earthrise is now the icon for Earth Day, which did not arise until after the image became widespread. At this level, an example of an 'emergent behavior' might be concern for Spaceship Earth, as encouraged by the development of orbiting space observatories etc. Other concepts which seem to have arisen only recently (in the last century) include increased expectations for human rights. In this case, an example of an 'emergent behavior' might perhaps be the use of the mass media to publicize inequities in the human condition, perhaps using highly portable cameras and telephones.

Example of emergent organization

It is possible to find other examples of critical mass necessary to develop a concept. For example a nascent coalition of individuals might fail in the implementation of some agreement among them; but in the words of Ward Cunningham, the inventor of the Wiki-wiki Web: :I thought there would be failure modes, but I wasn't surprised that communities found ways around them. I thought it was important that when the organization proved to be wrong, people could reorganize on their own, that organization could emerge. In other words, when the organization adapted, the concept adapted and survived the incipient failure mode.

Summary

Cognition is a diffuse term and is used in radically different ways by different disciplines. In psychology, it refers to an information processing view of an individual's psychological functions. Wider interpretations of the meaning of cognition link it to the development of concepts; individual minds, groups, organizations, and even larger coalitions of entities can be modelled as societies which cooperate to form concepts. The autonomous elements of each 'society' would have the opportunity to demonstrate emergent behavior in the face of some crisis or opportunity.

Related fields


- Cognitive linguistics
- Cognitive ontology
- Cognitive neuropsychology
- Cognitive neuroscience
- Cognitive psychology
- Cognitive science
- Evolutionary neuroscience

See also


- Animal cognition
- Animal communication
- As We May Think
- Cognitive bias
- Cognitive dissonance
- Cognitive radio
- Cognitive space
- Cognitivism (psychology)
- Emergence
- Functional neuroimaging
- Gestalt effect
- Holonomic brain theory
- Information foraging
- List of cognitive scientists
- Memory
- Memory-prediction framework
- Neurocognitive
- NLP meta programs
- Temporal cognition
- Theory of Cognitive development
- Theory of mind
- Quantum mind

External links


- [http://www.elsevier.nl/locate/cognit Cognition] An international journal publishing theoretical and experimental papers on the study of the mind.
- [http://www.hum.uva.nl/mmm/ Information on music cognition, University of Amsterdam]
- Emotional and Decision Making Lab, Carnegie Mellon, [http://computing.hss.cmu.edu/lernerlab/home.php EDM Lab]
- [http://www.insead.edu/CALT/Encyclopedia/ComputerSciences/AI/cognition.htm cognition] in the CALT encyclopedia category:Psychology Category:Philosophy of mind ja:認識

Learning theory (education)

In education and psychology, learning theories help us understand the process of learning. There are basically two main perspectives in learning theories, constructivism and behaviorism.

Constructivism

Constructivism views learning as a process in which the learner actively constructs or builds new ideas or concepts based upon current and past knowledge. In other words, "learning involves constructing one's own knowledge from one's own experiences" (Ormrod, J. E., Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, Fourth Edition. 2003, p. 227). Constructivist learning, therefore, is a very personal endeavor, whereby internalized concepts, rules, and general principles may consequently be applied in a practical real-world context. According to Jerome Bruner and other constructivists, the teacher acts as a facilitator who encourages students to disc