Sunday, September 9, 2012

Social Cognitive Theory Post 1

         The section that was the most interesting for me in Module 10 was the section that talked about self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is an individual’s idea about his abilities to be successful. Students who have a higher level of self-efficacy feel that they can obtain success and will challenge themselves more than students who have a lower level of self-efficacy. The idea of self-efficacy is important in a child’s learning process because it affects how hard the child will work in school and will determine behavior and achievement. Students base their level of efficacy based on past-performance, modeling, verbal persuasion, and physiological states. As future teachers, it becomes our responsibility to make sure that we continue to keep students with high self-efficacy motivated, and encourage students with low self-efficacy to keep improving. My question from reading this section was how can we bring students with low self-efficacy to a state of high self-efficacy? I feel that if they aren’t motivated to do something, they will never have the motivation to improve or to continue to try out the same activity.

          According to Social Cognitive Theory, learning is done through observation. By observing a behavior, a child can see whether performing that behavior received a reward or punishment and if it was worth repeating. An important aspect of this is modeling. As a teacher, one implication of this method of learning is that we become the models for our students. Everything we say or do is being watched by our students. If we are doing it, then it must be correct and acceptable to do in public. For this reason, it is important for us to know how to act in our classrooms in order to portray a positive model for our students.

          People in general affect the way I learn. Learning, according to the Social Cognitive Theory, is completed through observation, so watching other people succeed and how they succeed is a way for me to learn. Having someone’s experiences to look back on and use to improve one’s own lifestyle can be a way of learning for a lot of people.

2 comments:

  1. One strategy that I think teachers use to raise self-efficacy in their students is working in small groups. For example, let's look at reading groups. The teacher looks at her students abilities and places them in three different groups, based on their level. When students are grouped with other students who have similar abilities to them, they are more likely to feel confident in what they are doing. This way, the children who have a higher reading level are separated from them, making it less intimidating. Also, teachers tend to move kids between the groups depending on improvements. If a student that was in the lowest reading group gets moved to a higher one, this will also improve their self-efficacy. When students are compared to other students who have the same achievement level to them, their self-efficacy would be higher because they can see that they are on the same level as other students.

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  2. How do people affect the way you learn? Do you find the characteristics of SC Theory to be true for yourself?

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