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Social cognitive theory is developed by psychologist and a professor in Stanford, Albert Bandura. According to him, there are 3 ways a student can learn. Through observation, self – efficacy, and modelling. I have applied social cognitive teaching strategies to my past senior high school students, and found out that the best strategy turned out to be “Self-Efficacy”. Let me just define briefly the two strategies I applied in my class.
Observational learning
This is when a student observe and imitate models they encounter in the environment, enables them to acquire information. There are 4 phases of observational learning.
- Attentional processes – account for the information that is selected for observation in the environment.
- Retention processes – remembering the observed information.
- Production processes – reconstruct and apply the acquired information.
- Motivational processes – states that an acquired observation is likely to be performed by the observer in an appropriate situation if it can lead to positive outcome or results.
Self – Efficacy
This is the belief of an individual in his capacity to achieve a goal.
How my students learn best?
The best way to get students to learn best is to believe that they can do it. Thus, improving their self – confidence. In my case, I let my students developed their self – efficacy through vicarious experience and verbal persuasion.
Vicarious experience
I let my students observed their peers succeed in tasks. In this way, they can develop a strong belief that they, too, can do it. I never had let them compare to one another as this might cause havoc and can be just a disappointment if they failed to reach the achievement of that other student. It is important to let them compete to their previous performance. In this way they can see the trend of their improvements.
Verbal Persuasion
Effective communication and feedback is the most essential in the learning development of my students. I am so transparent in their development and where they are heading. I sometimes created a graphical excel sheet of their performance. There were ups and downs. I asked them what happened to these times where the performance was low and what they did when the performance was high. After that, I asked for their commitments to improve. This kind of communication built our strong connection.
Source:
Vinney, C. (2019). “Social Cognitive Theory: How we learn from the behavior of others.” ThoughtCo. Retrieved from: https://www.thoughtco.com/social-cognitive-theory-4174567
Image source:
Photo by Jilson Tiu. Retrieved from: http://nine.cnnphilippines.com/life/culture/2018/02/28/teachers-salary-philippines.html
Life is what you make it. 