Blog Week 7: Social Learning Theory

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Observations

In my ATLAS observations this week, I realized that there is much more social learning in classrooms that I previously thought. While students are certainly able to learn cognitively through a Piagetian accommodation/assimilation process, I was mildly surprised to see a lot of learning through modeling and imitation. For this week’s blog post, I will focus on a particular classroom scene that I believe exhibited multiple examples of Bandura’s social learning theory. In this video, there are three main characters: the teacher, a student in a helper/peer role, and a student with disabilities. This session was particularly focused on helping the student with disabilities learn and practice turn-taking behaviors.

The teacher began by showing a video to the two students of them participating in a turn-taking activity (the game “Don’t Break the Ice”). This is a technique known as video self-modeling: the student(s) watch themselves behaving in a certain way in a certain activity, then directly participate in that same activity after the video. So immediately after watching the video, the teacher had the students play Don’t Break the Ice. This went smoothly. After this, the teacher brought out another game that all three of them could play (another turn-taking game but I do not know the name).

I thought it was interesting that there are multiple role models in this example. First, the student, through the video, was a role model for himself. Second, the helper student was a role model; when the helper student played Don’t Break the Ice, the student would imitate her behavior. Third, by participating in the second game, the teacher also became a role model. For me, the most interesting thing here is the concept of self-modeling. What is the difference between watching a video of oneself and watching a video of someone else? It seems that self-modeling affirms to the student that he is able to behave in the (desired) way, and then also suggests that he should behave in that way. A video of someone else would not suggest anything regarding the particular student’s ability to behave in a certain way; while it may suggest that the student imitate the behavior, the connection may not be as strong compared to watching one’s own behavior.

I am not sure about the role of the helper/peer student. It seems fact that she is a peer makes it more likely for the student to imitate her behavior. That is, this may tap into the student’s “I want to do what other children are doing” desire.

Lastly, I think it is important that the teacher participated in the second game. Again, she becomes a role model to be imitated; but her participation suggests that everyone, even the teacher, is subject to the particular rules of behavior demanded by the scenario (the game). If the teacher merely observed the game instead of participating, the student might have imitated the teacher’s behavior (which is not the desired behavior). By eliminating a potential role model for a non-desired behavior, the student has an easier time practicing the turn-taking behavior.

As a behavioral approach, social learning theory focuses on observable actions and behaviors, as opposed to cognitive or mental processes. Because of this, it is extremely important for a teacher to be a model of the desired behaviors—if the teacher is idling, the students will be inclined to imitate the idling. The teacher should exhibit the desired behaviors, and should not exhibit the undesired ones. Secondly, it seems that the teacher must keep careful watch over the emergence of new behaviors among the students. While the teacher has no control over what behaviors the students are exposed to outside of school, the teacher is, nevertheless, able to influence the student’s behaviors through reinforcement and punishment. In general, desired behaviors should be encouraged through positive or negative reinforcement, while undesired behaviors should be discouraged through punishment or penalty. Given this discussion of desired versus undesired behavior, I would argue that behavioral approaches to learning also implicitly require that teachers know which behaviors are desired or undesired. This is an almost moral requirement: the teacher must know which behaviors are good (and thus desired) for a student, and which behaviors are bad (undesired) for a student.

My experience and evidence of social learning

I would say that my high school history teacher was a role model for me. Everyone knew that she worked extremely hard on lesson planning, grading, and all the behaviors of a teacher. Having her as a teacher really pushed me to work harder as well.

I think trends can be an example of imitation and role modeling. If a popular person does a certain activity or behaves in a certain way, there is an inclination to imitate them. When I was in high school, fidget spinners became popular at some point. While I did not personally care for those toys, I ended up imitating everyone else and also got one. There seems to be a certain modeling and imitation even among peers.

Additional comments

Going back to the requirements for teachers in a behavioral framework, it seems to me that behavioral approaches require some moral theory in order to answer the question of “what behaviors should be desired?” One answer to this would be that “good behaviors should be desired”—and this would leave room for a moral theory to decide what behaviors are “good” behaviors. In this sense, any application of behavioral theory requires some moral theory to provide the theoretical basis for what the desired behavior is.

For me, it seems that some parts of behavioral theories are called into question by moral theories. In particular, there is a question about (external) motivation. It seems to me that in general, behavioral approaches have a consequentialist tinge to them. It seems that a strict behaviorist (maybe Skinner) would not see a difference between a person behaving a certain way because he wants a reward versus a person behaving in the same way because he believes it to be morally good behavior. The behavior is the same in both cases, and the motivation does not matter insofar the resulting behavior is the same. For example, one desired behavior may be to not physically assault others on a street. One person may exhibit the desired behavior because he does not want to go to jail; another may exhibit the desired behavior because he wants to do the morally right thing. While this is a concern with behaviorism in general, I still think it is intuitive for social learning theory to incorporate some cognitive elements.

• This topic was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by Tonja Clay.

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