Social Learning Theory in Classroom

 1. Students can learn by observation. As teachers, we need to expose our students to good role models for them to exhibit positive behavior. Observational learning can as well be applied across various subject areas. Demonstration method is perhaps the most common example in which a teacher model or demonstrate a certain skill while students learn by observe and follow. 

2. Discuss to the learners the reward and consequences of certain behaviors. This can effectively make students be driven to exhibit appropriate behaviors while reducing the occurrence of inappropriate ones.  

3. Modeling can be used to teach new behaviors. It gives another way of molding certain behaviors aside from reward and punishment. By exposing students to certain models and the consequences of their certain behavior, it provides a more efficient way for teaching new behavior.  However, the teacher has to take into account that the four important conditions exist to make modelling effective. These are attention, retention, motor reproduction, and motivation.

4. Teachers and parents must be an exemplar of appropriate behavior. This highlights that we teachers, together with parents and adults, first and foremost be a good role model for our students. We must be careful with our own actions since what we do, being adults, is most of the time considered right in the eyes of the students.

5. Present students with different models. We should not limit modelling to typical examples rather exposed students with a variety of other models. This way, students avoid stereotyping and labelling certain groups of people. 

Social Interaction

 Social interaction is a dynamic, changing sequence of social actions between individuals or groups who modify their actions and reactions according to the actions by their interaction partners. In other words, they are events in which people attach meaning to a situation, interpret what others are meaning and respond accordingly.

    It may also refer to the acts, actions or practices of two or more people mutually oriented towards each other's selves, that is, any behavior that tries to affect or take account of each other's subjective experiences or intentions. This means that the parties in social interaction must be aware of each other, or have each other's self in mind. This does not mean being in sight of or directly behaving toward each other. Social interaction is not defined by type of physical relation or behavior, or by physical distance. It is a matter of mutual subjective orientation toward each other. Thus, even with no physical behavior is involved, there is social interaction.
    It is seen that humans by nature are social being. They have innate drive or motive for affiliation, or the need to be with other people and to have personal relationship (Larey, 2001).
    (What an introduction about social interaction..hehehe)

    Now going to the my point, social interaction among children plays an important factor in their development. Interactions with parents, teachers and other adults introduce children to important social standards and rules. These interactions produce knowledge and respect for the social order, including its principles of organizations and legitimate authority. Furthermore, learning is influenced by social interactions, interpersonal relationships and communications with other people.
    Albert Bandura's reciprocal determinism describes the view that human development reflects an interaction between the person, the person's behavior, and the environment which includes other persons. This sees that development is a continuous reciprocal interaction between children and their environment. The situation or environment that a child experiences will surely affect him, but his behavior is thought to affect his environment as well. The implication of this is that children are actively involved in shaping the very environment that will influence their growth and development.
    Being appropriately social requires children to interact with others, and these interactions are more likely to be harmonious if they know what their social partners are thinking and feeling and can predict how these partners will likely to behave. This links to the idea of sociability that describes the child willing to engage other in social interaction and to seek attention and approval.
    In the middle childhood stage of development, sociability among peers is the most common and noticeable social interaction that children do. Also, peer interaction may be especially important for learning to regulate aggression and for understanding principles of loyalty, equity and important foundations of moral developement (Hartup, 1992; Keller and Edelstin, 1993). It introduces children to norms that direct reciprocity, and to standards of sharing, cooperation and fairness.

     Another reason middle childhood peer groups are important is because they challenge children to develop their interaction skills. Elementary school children must work to make the peer group understand what they are thinking and feeling. They must also struggle to see the points of view that other children hold. Through such efforts toward mutual understanding, children gain in social competence, that is, their ability to achieve personal goals in social interaction, while continuing to maintain positive relationship with others throughout elementary school years.

   Moreover, social scripts or special rules about particular form of social interactions change with age, not just because the children's cognitive skills change but also simply because that these rules change from social setting to another.

Behavior

 Behavior refers to the action or reactions of an object or organism usually in relation to the environment. This refers to the general trait, values or character that the child manifests. These behaviors may be explained by both hereditary and environmental factors.

      Behavioral genetics view development as the process through which one’s genotype, or the set of genes one inherits, comes to be expressed as a phenotype, or one’s observable characteristics and behavior. They claim that most behavioral attributes are the end product of a long and involved interplay between hereditary predisposition and environmental influences. Family studies and other longitudinal projects reveal that many core dimensions of personality are genetically influenced. For example, introversion and extroversion or the extent to which a person is shy and uncomfortable around others versus out-going and socially oriented, shows about the same moderate level of heritability as IQ does (Martin ad Jardine, 1986). Another important attribute that may be genetically influenced is emphatic concern, or the recognition of the need of others and concern about their welfare.

      On the other hand, Bronfenbrenner’s ecological system theory emphasizes that the developing person is embedded in a series of environmental systems that interact with one another and with the person to influence development. In addition, Vygotsky’s socio-cultural theory perceives development in which children acquire their attitudes, values, beliefs and problem solving strategies though collaborative dialogue with more knowledgeable members of the society. Moreover, Bandura’s social learning believed that children acquire their behavior through observation and imitation. Complex behavior is the result of exposure to component models that display appropriate behavior in solving problems and up with the world.

      During the course of development, most humans arrive at a point at which they behave responsibly and to think of themselves as moral individuals. Psychoanalysts say that children are motivated to act in accordance with their ethical principles in order to experience positive affect such as pride and to avoid negative emotions such as guilt and shame. Cognitive developmental theorists also suggest that the ways children think about right and wrong may change dramatically as they mature.

       Behavior is very critical especially with children’s relationship with others. The patterns of behavior they display predict the statuses they will achieve with their peers. Children who have difficulties appropriately regulating their emotions like anger, are often rejected by peers and are likely to develop psychological problems, drop-out of schools or become delinquent. On the other hand, children who display altruism and express positive emotions have better relationship with their peers.

      The bottomline of the above-mentioned discussion imply the need for significant people such as parents and teachers to serve as role models for the children. Parents may pass on some traits to their children, but the importance of environmental nurturing in home, in school and in the community as a whole serve as a critical component in molding good behaviors among the children.

Motivation

  

    In general, motivation can be defined as: an internal state or condition that activates behavior and give its direction; a desire or want that energizes and direct goal-oriented behavior; an influence of need and desire on the intensity and direction of behavior; and the arousal, direction and persistence of behavior.
Motivation is classified either intrinsic or extrinsic. It is intrinsic when the source of motivation is from within the person him/herself or the activity itself. Motivation is extrinsic when that which motivates a person is someone or something outside him/her.
   There are various theories about motivation. Here are some identified theories that explain the motivation:
1. Psychoanalytic Theory-man's motivation is basically unconscious.
2. Superiority and Compensation Theory-emphasized accentuated feeling of inferiority which lead to compensatory activity and a style of life characterized by achievin a plus situation of superiority.
3. Activation Arousal Theory-highly physiological, this theory emphasized balance between level of arousal and environmental stimulation.
4. Social Learning Theory-an individual's motivation is based on his part experiences wherein a particular behavior is based on the success or failure of previous behavior.
5. Humanistic Theory-man's basic needs are physiological while his ultimate need is the development of his potential in which Maslow calls self actualization.
    Educators suggest that intrinsic motivation, or the force that people do without external rewards, yields more positive effect among the learners. It drives the learners to learn even without something material in return. Understanding the nature of intrinsic motivation will enable teachers to develop activities that will awaken this drive, thus enhances learning.

White(1959) published a paper-evidence that human beings have an intrinsic need to feel competent and that behaviors such as exploration and mastery attempts are best explained by this innate motivation force. Piaget(1952) also claimed that from the first day of life, human beings are naturally inclined to practice newly developing competencies or "schemes", and that practicing new skills is inherently satisfying. In the principle of optimal challenge, competence motivation explains children's efforts only to challenging tasks, tasks that will lead to increased competence.

According to White and Piaget, increasing competence that results from practicing newly developing skills and mastering challenging tasks engenders a feeling of efficacy, sometimes referred to as feeling of competence, similar to achievement and pride. It is in this positive emotional experience that makes mastery behavior self-reinforcing.

Other theories on intrinsic motivation portray human beings as information processors. It claims that humans are predisposed to derive pleasure from activities and events that provide some level of surprise, incongruity, complexity or discrepancy from our expectations or beliefs. Pleasure is assumed to derive from creating, investigating, or processing stimuli that as moderately discrepant. Stimulus that are not all discrepant or novel will not arouse interest, and stimuli that are too discrepant from the individual's expectation will be ignored, cause anxiety or even provoke "terror and flight".

Consistent with the principle of optimal challenge, several studies have confirmed that children's emotional response are most intense when they master moderately challenging tasks, which is most likely to lead to improved competence, results in the most positive emotional experience.

Many studies have demonstrated tilt students who believe they are competent academically are more intrinsically interested in school task than those who have a low perception of their academic ability.

Harter said that students often become less intrinsically motivated as they progress through the school years depending on their perception of their academic competence. It is also important to note that environmental factors such as the influence of parents and teachers are considered crucial in the development and maintenance of intrinsic motivation. Students who are encouraged to develop intrinsic motivation in their early years continue to be intrinsically motivated in subsequent education, thus providing basis for achievement motivation in later years. Harter also suggests that sense of self-worth, fostered by a sense of belonging and being socially supported engenders a generally positive affective and motivational state.

Principles of Social Learning Theory

 

1. Learning occurs through observation. We learn by observing other people. They observe other’s behavior and the results of these behaviors. Remember the “bobo doll experiment”? Children learn especially from older ones and try to imitate their behavior. This underscores the significance of good role models for children to learn appropriate and positive behavior.  

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2. Learning doesn’t necessarily mean a change in behavior. Behaviorist theory connotes that learning should result to a change in behavior. For social learning theorists, learning can happen even without a change in behavior. People can learn just observation and does not certainly have to be represented in a change to their behavior. 

3. Social learning theory involves cognition for learning. Various cognitive factors are involved for people to learn such as attention, awareness and retention. Reinforcement and punishment also have an impact on the behavior people may demonstrate and exhibit. 

4. In relation to the above-mentioned principle, social learning theory can be considered a transition between behaviorist learning theories and cognitive learning theories. It suggests the importance of cognitive process in learning like attention but at the same time acknowledges the role of behaviorist idea of reinforcement and punishment to strengthen learning and behavior.