Born of Albert Bandura's Social Learning Theory and Jean Piaget's Constructivism Learning Theory, what I call Social Constructivism Learning Theory marries principles of both philosophies into a working model of how we learn today.
What I took from Bandura's Social Learning Theory is his idea that we learn by observation. According to Bandura, observation can take one of three forms: 1) Live Model observation, which is watching the behavior of a person in the same physical space, 2) Verbal Model observation, which describes observing a behavior mentally as someone describes it verbally to you, and 3) Symbolic Model observation, which reserves observational learning for real and/or fictional characters' behaviors as demonstrated on TV, in movies or books, and as I would like to add, in games and virtual worlds.
Piaget's Constructivism Learning Theory offers up some complimentary principles to join to those taken from Social Learning Theory, mainly that we arrive at knowledge construction and understanding through our own unique experiences.
The diagram which I have created to represent my Learning Theory Mash up shows the three models of learning as outlined in Bandura's approach. These three models are interconnected, lending themselves to a comprehensive observational approach to learning. And as illustrated behind the triangle, Constructivism Learning Theory is depicted as a branching tree. I chose this metaphor to capture the variance in our experiences as learners. While we all participate in some degree of each of the three models of observational learning, we do so from our own unique context as prescribed by the experiences we have enjoyed through life.
As you consider Social Constructivism Learning Theory, ponder the following questions. Leave your thoughts in the comments thread below if you would like.
- How significant of a contribution do you think observation makes to our overall learning?
- Is one model of social learning (Live, Verbal, or Symbolic) more influential than the others?
- Will we become more intelligent as we have more frequent and richer experiences?
- What do we need to do to ensure an experience is meaningful?
Hi Dave,
ReplyDeleteI am commenting on your mash-up theory in relationship to John Bransford's four elements of how people learn:
1. Learner centered: Your theory sees learners are seen as unique individuals with their own experiences and context within the learning situation.
2. A sense of community. Your theory's attention to social constructivism positions the learner in a community or socially connected.
3. Knowledge / doing with understanding. I am a little stuck here as your learning theory is more based on observation rather than doing. What are your thoughts here? I know that constructivism involves doing so it would seem that it is part of your theory, just not called out.
4. Assessment - learner friendly and formative. Also not sure here as your learning theory doesn't directly address this. Maybe you could comment below on this one as I am sure you have thoughts and ideas that could be incorporated.
I really like the image you created and also was very interested in the ideas in your mash-up as I had not heard of Bandura before but these ideas make a lot of sense.