· Discuss one question or confusion that you have from reading the module (on social cognitive theory).
o I did not fully understand the symbolic models they used (page 177). I understand that they are people the children look up to and want to be like. I am surprised that there’s no one the age of elementary students on the page.
o I thought it was interesting that they said learning does not have to show a change of behavior. I agree with this, but I’ve always read that it does require a change of behavior.
· The big idea of this week is that other PEOPLE (even on the large scale of culture and society) can affect the way that you learn, and also affect what counts as learning.
· Who or what can be a model? How do models support learning?
o Anyone can be a model. As a camp counselor and a cadet teacher, I had to constantly be aware that the kids would be using me as a model. A model tends to be: people with something the modeler wants to model, someone who knows what they are doing, and someone who has high status such as: parents, older siblings, , popular students, peers, teachers, principals, people who are in charge of you, famous people, politicians, and religious figures.
· What kind of models have affected your learning most significantly? OR, What kind of models are important in teaching your content area? Discuss this idea from the chapter and your own experiences.
o My learning has been affected mostly by my mom, my big brother, my big sister, my teachers, my camp counselors, and my friends.
o My mom would ask me what I planned to do better next time when I got my report card whereas my dad would either get mad at me or say good job. My brother would give me a CD or a DVD for every 2 A’s or B’s I got in middle school. He surprised me by taking me to the Hilary Duff concert during my freshman year of high school. My big sister was smart, so I tried to do a lot of things she did in high school (even though she’s 9 years older than me so I started off just living in her (& my brothers) shadow(s). I thought my camp counselors were really cool so when they talked about school or music, I took what they said as law. I liked to look smart in front of my friends (no one wants to look dumb.) I try to learn from my friends that are good at the subjects that I am taking.
I think they used these specific examples because it is something that we (as college students) understand. I don't know what elementary students watch now, but I know these examples. They are all models, but not people that I know.
ReplyDeleteI found that interesting as well, but then I realized that I can watch a student be obnoxious in class and learn not to do that, but my behavior does not change.
I understood those examples because they are pretty current in pop culture. These are characters that are very popular and are very common models for children. The book uses these as examples so we can clearly see what a symbolic model is like, because we recognize these characters so well.
ReplyDeleteAbout the learning not causing behavior change, I think that just meant the model went through a situation and the child saw how they reacted and what they did and internalized it. Later on, when the child comes to the same type of situation, they will remember what their model did and mimic the behavior. I took it to mean that the behavior change doesn't have to show up immediately to indicate learning, but once put in a situation similar, it can appear.