Social Cognitive Theory

During the last day of my internship class I observed many concepts that we went over in my Learning & Development within the School Context class. The three concepts from the readings that noticed in my internship class were live models, observational learning, and teacher efficacy. (Bohlin, Durwin, & Reese-Weber, 2012). I noticed these concepts during a lesson I was teaching and when we had speakers in the classroom that day.

The last day of my internship for this semester turned out to be the Great American Teach-In and all the classes that day were signed up to have speakers come and talk to the students. The first speaker that came into our classroom was an engineer and he brought some blue-prints of a house that he worked on. The engineer was talking to the students about the different parts of the house and what the owners wanted in their house and how he deigned everything. This speaker was a live model for the students. Live models are "...individuals who are observed directly-can be the observer’s friends, parents, siblings, fellow students, or teachers” and in this case the live model was the engineer that came in for the Great American Teach-In (Bohlin, Durwin, & Reese-Weber, 2012). The students were able to observe this speaker directly and interact with him and ask him questions about his career.

I noticed observational learning when my internship class went to go see the firefighters that day. Observational learning is, “Learning by observing others’ behaviors...” (Bohlin, Durwin, & Reese-Weber, 2012). The students observed the firefighters’ behaviors when they were talking about what a person should do if someone or themselves is on fire. Also, the firefighters told the students that if they behaved appropriately during their lesson then they would bring the students over to their firetruck and show them all the cool tools it has. My internship class noticed that because the other class paid attention they got to go over to see the firetruck, so my class did some observational learning by observing the other students on “…which behaviors will receive rewards or punishments..”(Bohlin, Durwin, & Reese-Weber, 2012). So my internship class made sure they were on their best behavior like the other students because they wanted to be rewarded with going to see the firetruck.

The last concept that I noticed was teacher efficacy during one of my lessons. “Teacher efficacy is a teacher’s belief in his or her capability to transmit knowledge as well as manage the classroom well.” (Bohlin, Durwin, & Reese-Weber, 2012). I pulled a small group and did a guided reading for one of my lessons and I was very confident with the lesson I had planned out. I made sure that I pulled a lower reading level group so I could spend more one-on-one time with them and see where they were at. “Teacher efficacy can be increased by observing other teachers, practicing performance (e.g., student teaching), and gaining more knowledge in one’s subject areas.” (Bohlin, Durwin, & Reese-Weber, 2012). I observed my CT do guided readings with students all the time, so by the time I did my own I felt I could transmit knowledge to those students very well. The questions that I asked the students about a book I had them reading with me did not just have a “Yes” or “No” answer to them. I wanted the student to really do some critical thinking during this guided reading and it says that, “Teachers with high efficacy develop more challenging lessons…and are more persistent in working with students who are struggling,” and that’s what I did with this lesson (Bohlin, Durwin, & Reese-Weber, 2012).

Those are the key concepts that I noticed/did when observing/teaching my internship class. When talking about those three concepts there are some things to think about. Children are always observing others, so do you think teachers need to always be aware of what they say or do around students because students are always doing observational learning? Do you think that live models have a deeper impact on children than symbolic models? If yes, why and if no, why not? These questions are some things all future and present teachers should think about.

References

Bohlin, L., Durwin, C. C., & Reese-Weber, M. (n.d.). EdPsych Modules (Second ed.). New

York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

#socialcognitivetheory #livemodels #observationallearning #teacherefficacy #CT #Reflection #internship #EDP3273