SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEORY
The Theory
- In this day and age, most of our society is glued to a television. Our children learn ideas, symbols, and language from the device, and apply them to the real world. This is a simplistic definition of the Social Cognitive Theory. The main psychologist who worked on this theory is one Albert Bandura, and was primarily meant to explain why certain behaviors get developed into an adolescent/adults life. This theory is keen on observation, meaning what we see, we adapt to. As we grow older, we begin to notice how certain people accomplish tasks in easier ways, and that is prevalent almost all the way through life. When a human doesn't know how to do something, a general reaction is to find someone who does and learn from, social cognitive at its finest. This is another theory the relies heavily on the peers to determine what skills are learned and obtained. This can also be applied to morals, which in some cases can be adapted in order to survive or fit in with a certain denomination of people. When applying this theory, there seems to be two separate stages of the theory: one being the learning, and then the other being the actually display of the practice learned. This theory has been used in a lot of locales, including at home business, and our main area of focus; the school systems.
(Bandura, 2001)
(Bandura, 2001)
Application
- In my classroom, my students are going to be constantly learning, and not just from me. In any normal class room, you have students sitting together, socializing and interacting. Out in the hallway, in the cafeteria, and even the parking lot, teachers are going to learn that students learn anything their brain allows them to. And whether we want them to learn these things is not always our choice. I have a plan, and I am borrowing multiple theories here.
- Scaffolding is generally associated with Vgotsky, but I think it can work here as well. We as teachers are not only guides, but we are watchers of the classroom. We are able to see how our students interact, and in certain situations they will adapt differently to any assignments. My plan is to do a lot of student watching for the first month of their time in my classroom, allowing them to sit in tables or circles of four and feeding off of each other. At a certain point in the semester, I am going to move my students all around in the class to sit with students with different personalities and learning abilities, and again allowing them to feed off of each other. In this attempt, I am hoping that the theory will kick in and have my lower performing students grab some of the skills from the higher students, but also hopefully passing some of the social skills the lower performing students have to the higher students. This way, no student is left out of the circle of development.
- Scaffolding is generally associated with Vgotsky, but I think it can work here as well. We as teachers are not only guides, but we are watchers of the classroom. We are able to see how our students interact, and in certain situations they will adapt differently to any assignments. My plan is to do a lot of student watching for the first month of their time in my classroom, allowing them to sit in tables or circles of four and feeding off of each other. At a certain point in the semester, I am going to move my students all around in the class to sit with students with different personalities and learning abilities, and again allowing them to feed off of each other. In this attempt, I am hoping that the theory will kick in and have my lower performing students grab some of the skills from the higher students, but also hopefully passing some of the social skills the lower performing students have to the higher students. This way, no student is left out of the circle of development.
Standard
2.8 knowledge of how various individual factors (e.g., prior learning and experiences, interests, talents) and factors in the home, school, and community influence learning processes, and the ability to use this knowledge to improve teaching effectiveness and learning outcomes