Proponents
Jerome Bruner, 1915; Scaffolding
Noam Chomsky, 1928
Unit of analysis: Individual's mind structure and the mental representations of the mind
As an emerging field in psychology in 1950s, cognitivism focuses on inner mental activities of the individual mind. Understanding human mind is necessary in order to understand how they learn. Cognitivists are interested in understanding the mental processes such as thinking, memory, knowing, and problem solving. Learning can be viewed as a schema or symbolic mental constructions. Learning therefore is defined as a change in the learner's schemata.