Overview
This lecture covers Bandura's Social Learning Theory, its key components, and practical applications for classroom teaching and management.
Key Concepts of Social Learning Theory
- Bandura's theory emphasizes learning through observing, modeling, and imitating others' behaviors, attitudes, and emotional reactions.
- Social learning theory differs from behaviorist (conditioning/reinforcement) and cognitive (attention/memory) theories by focusing on social context influences.
- The Bobo doll experiments showed children imitate behaviors observed in adults, especially when those behaviors are rewarded.
- Models can include live demonstrations, verbal instructions, or symbolic representations (media, books, etc.).
- Identification with a model increases motivation to adopt the model's behaviors.
- Internal psychological factors, such as satisfaction or pride, influence learning, not just external rewards or punishments.
- Learning a new behavior does not guarantee execution; its value to the learner matters.
Four Steps of Social Learning Theory
- Attention: Learners must focus on the model; distractions or lack of interest reduce learning.
- Retention: Learners need strategies (mnemonics, repetition, real-life application) to remember what they've observed.
- Reproduction: After attention and retention, learners attempt to perform the behavior, improving with practice.
- Motivation: Reinforcement and punishment affect whether learners choose to imitate the behavior.
Classroom Applications
- Use positive/negative reinforcement to shape classroom behavior (e.g., verbal praise for participation or preparedness).
- Provide physical or verbal cues for transitions and to capture student attention (e.g., hand signals, call and response).
- Incorporate multimodal instruction (visual, auditory, kinesthetic) to improve retention.
- Support intrinsic motivation with rewards, feedback, and progress tracking.
- Promote collaborative learning for peer modeling and practice.
- Utilize flipped classroom models for observation and practice of new behaviors.
- Apply gamification to increase motivation through structured rewards.
Key Terms & Definitions
- Observational Learning — acquiring new behaviors by watching others.
- Model — the person or character whose behavior is observed and imitated.
- Intrinsic Reinforcement — internal rewards, such as pride or satisfaction, that motivate behavior.
Action Items / Next Steps
- Review the four steps of social learning theory and consider examples from your own learning.
- Observe classroom interactions for instances of modeling, reinforcement, and imitation.
- Reflect on ways to apply multimodal and collaborative learning in lesson planning.