Personal Reflection on Social Learning

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I rather like social learning as a learning theory, partly because of its inclusion of symbolic models. Loosely, consuming media such as movies, cartoons, comics, books, and other types of "not a live person" sources and considering them human constructions and therefore "models" with which we can interact addresses some of my previous concerns/questions with other learning theories and piques my interest. It is intriguing to think about how behavioral patterns are affected by these models that we interact with, even boiling down to social media posts that skew our perspectives and beliefs and, ultimately, our resulting actions based on biased presentation of facts, opinions, rhetoric, and propoganda, let alone misinformation. What perplexes me, however, is how this theory deals with the discovery of new knowledge, processes, information, ideas, and other mental occurrences. To me, it seems as though a learner must observe some sort of model performing or describing a behavior which the model then imitates, gains feedback on, and rehearses over time until the imitation is more "clean", if you will. But what about those who are discovering new methods of doing things that were not originally supported by society or deemed behaviors that were "acceptable" by society? Does that not fall under learning and knowledge, or is that more the generation of knowledge with its acceptance and promotion being the social endeavor that is covered by social learning, such as the shift in paradigms that occur with scientific revolutions of old and sometimes new? Perhaps that is too large a question to ask in this simple reflection on social learning. Regardless, I think that these points address my feelings about social learning: it makes sense in some regards, but not others, just as the rest of the theories seem to do. It doesn't seem as though one theory can truly cover everything that you want to address about learning, and counterexamples are ever present in a "devil's advocate" mind.

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I feel this learning theory does a good job in informing the design of instruction. Much of what we learn is simply the repetition of behaviors that are presented - and either reinforced or punished - by some sort of model that learners value enough to pay attention to. Perhaps that is one of the issues with trying to teach students that have no interest in learning; they may not value the model that is trying to demonstrate different behaviors and, therefore, don't bother paying attention to or trying to perform the behavior. Yet most of our foundational knowledge is learned through this type of instruction. For example: in mathematics, we are taught how to use a formula for a specific scenario to reach a final solution by observing a model use the equation and imitating and rehearsing the use of that equation ourselves. This could be filled in for many different behaviors and subjects. Later, when foundational knowledge is built, the use of collaborative learning that is associated with social learning theory can help further our understanding and construction of knowledge by not necessarily watching a model perform a behavior, but by interacting with others, taking in different perspectives and bits of information, regulating our own learning, and thinking about what it is we are trying to grasp or wrestle with on a cognitive (and sometimes behavioral or physical) level. We then see that processing affect our behaviors and attitudes towards different topics, which is all influenced by what feedback society gives the learner when they express those behaviors, ideas, attitudes, etc.

 

Social learning moves beyond both the behaviorist and cognitivist perspective in that environment, behavior, and perception are put on the same playing field (reciprocal causation), social interactions are promoted to construct knowledge, and learners need to actively process and decide how this information is going to impact their future perceptions and behaviors. While behaviorism and cognitivism may share many similarities with social learning, they most certainly are not the same thing. 

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I feel the classroom activities were reflective of social learning. Quite often, we were required to pair off into groups to accomplish some sort of task. This social interaction helped us voice our understanding of the material and address any misconceptions that we may have had with each other. We then constructed our own knowledge of an idea, concept, or other trinket of information that we could then apply to the problem at hand. The environment was structured in a manner that promoted participation in question, answer, and discussion, and the process was democratic in a way that forced all voices to be heard as opposed to the same voice over and over (granted, it was MY voice that kept answering over and over, but I better understand the times in which I was asked not to answer after evaluating social learning theory than I had when I was younger and told the same thing by my teachers). As fun as it is to be a model for others, it is important to know when to pass the torch to someone else so they, too, can participate. Participation is a key ingredient in social learning that isn't always mentioned. You can set the classroom and activities up in ways that promote instructional design inspired by social learning, but if learners don't want to participate in what it is you're asking them to do, then the process falls apart. I think this is one of the pitfalls of social learning-inspired instructional design; students are not accustomed to collaborative work and motivation can be an issue when helping students adjust to such a teaching tool. If I can pull from behaviorism, it might be best to present social learning teaching techniques in smaller chunks to students until it becomes more widespread, especially at the college level. 

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I am unsure of what questions I still have about social learning theory that were not already mentioned above. While this theory also does not require that learners show a behavior to demonstrate they have learned something, it certainly seems to lean heavily on that aspect (e.g. "learning is a change in behavior patterns which society expects" (Koszalka, 2018)). I still ponder about those who cannot perform behaviors to show their learning, as I did with all the other learning theories. I feel as though some of these learning theories are somewhat exclusionary to those with physical disabilities. I understand that behavior is observable and cognitive processes are not, but at the same time, are deeming a demographic "unknowledgable" because they cannot perform the behavior? What if they can verbally describe the desired behavior or write it out? What if they can't? How do the learning theories address this? What about those who cannot simply observe a model performing a behavior or hear a model describe what is expected of them? Can social learning theory still explain this? 

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One of the things that changed my perspective of instruction when interacting with social learning is the importance of social interaction and group work. As a youngin' and even now, there are times I hate group work. I don't always like talking to people, and having to do so can be very draining to my mental health. That is definitely something that needs some more consideration in the implementation of instructional design based on social learning. Regardless, it certainly supports my incoming perceptions that learning at the collegiate level needs to shift away from passive notetaking to active problem solving. That is supported in social learning theory and the emphasis on interaction to construct knowledge. That is another thing that I have some conflicts with, however. The construction of knowledge compared to the acquisition of knowledge. Is learning a basic fact (for example: that is brown) acquisition whereas construction is reserved for more complicated ideas? Or is the entire process construction of itself because one must identify what "that" is, what "brown" is, and whether "that is brown"? Do we need to have learned from others what these terms are in order to classify the object and therefore, have the influence of what society deems as the "correct" knowledge or behavior be that which we absorb into our own basis? When it comes to basic facts, part of me thinks that acquisition of the knowledge is at play. At the same time, I can see how everything can be constructed and how everything is influenced by the social constructs in which we are forced to live in. We need the piecework to put the puzzle together to only then take the puzzle apart again. And, as much as we try to avoid it, subjectivity is a driving force in learning, and it can greatly affect our understanding of information in a way that I feel can only be described by either misconceptions in cognitivism or, perhaps more potently, the construction of knowledge and the impact societal influences have on that construction. Two people can view the same content and construct meaning in much different ways, and I feel that is best suited for social learning; we develop these ideas and persuasions from others and our environment which then influences how we behave. I've seen it happen with so many issues, and it is only through social interactions do we begin to see any sort of change in the behaviors around us.

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I think of the three learning theories we dabbled in, social learning theory (despite its faults) makes the most sense to me. It ties in both physical, observable behavior and internal, cognitive processes in a manner in which behaviorism and cognitivism do not. While cognitivism is a close second for me in terms of ranking these learning theories, I feel as though it falls short. The construction of meaning and knowledge present in social learning covers more scenarios of learning than the acquisition-based model of cognitivism. With social learning, the impact of the environment on the learner's cognitive processes is apparent, and the social climate in which someone is exposed to can affect the manner in which they construct knowledge. While in cognitivism, knowledge does need to be actively thought about in terms of fitting it into new schema or modifying existing schema to fit the new information, I feel it is limited to just that; here is some information, I've organized it for you like this, and you should take it in and organize like this. Social learning, on the other hand, explains much more of what "natural" learning feels like; placement in a rich environment that can influence your perceptions and behaviors and vice versa. We haven't been given graphic organizers of information for our whole lives, but we have always been exposed to the richness of the world around us and have learned form such experiences. Whether it is watching the ways birds fly in the winter or how an animal gets water in a desert, humans can observe and make meaning from what they observe all around them. The sharing of the meaning and the reaching of a consensus on that meaning is what helps us generate and use knowledge not just ot advance ourselves, but as a common language to communicate with. While the phrases and concepts might not be exactly the same across cultures, there are similarities in the joint construction of knowledge that can make relating that common background much easier. Social learning can also govern how we shift our perceptions with the presentation of new information in any format and perhaps without any sort of scaffolding and guidance; we can interact with a book or Facebook post, take that information, think about it, and determine how it influences our decisions moving forward. With the consideration that such symbolic materials are referred to as models that one can observe and interact with to elicit a specific pattern of beahviors, I feel as though social learning "covers the most bases" when it comes to the learning theories. However, I don't see myself only applying instructional design based on social learning. I feel the practices used in all the learning theories could be useful in one way or another, depending upon what you're teaching and to who.