The Social Learning Theory is so essential to teaching because it's comprised of doing the one thing humans do best: socializing! If humans didn't socialize, they could never pass what knowledge or ideas they have to one another, and without that, I don't know how we'd survive as a species.
I also think that the Social Learning Theory is important because it brings what is being taught down to earth. To young people, teachers are considered authority, a label to which feelings of contempt and indifference can be produced. Sometimes the teacher can get so caught up giving the lecture that he or she forget to think about how the students are absorbing the material. In high school, my teachers always would look around the room after a lecture and say,"Do we understand everything?" Then of course we would all murmur "yes" and/or absent-mindedly nod our heads. This would be how our teachers would "know" that we "understood" everything. They never followed through with assessing how well we understood the material or what we did or didn't understand or who really understood or didn't understand what. This is something that the students should have gotten the chance to assess amongst themselves. What would students talk about after the class was over? The lecture that happened that day!
Who do most students turn to at first when they can't answer a math problem? Most likely it will be a friend or someone sitting next to them. When I was in my high school Spanish class, my classmates and I had to read texts in Spanish. Immediately we all split up into groups of friends working to translate what we read. If we hadn't done this, none of us would've never been able to finish it.
So basically what I'm trying to say is that it's important that teachers allow the students to at least have some time to make contact with the people around them. They can talk about what they learned or the teacher could ask them to work together to solve a problem or anything like that. Teachers often get too tied down with maintaining rigid "discipline."
However I do see some problems with SLT as well. The students could go off subject and just start talking about everything but the subject. In some cases having social interactions may not even make sense in some situations. However overall it can be useful in the end. I'm still trying to understand how a teacher would use DLT and SLT together. Perhaps there is no one easy answer for that question.
I'm not sure if I agree with your first statement in regards to SLT. Human's are social creatures, true, but making a blanket statement such as "the one thing human's do best: socializing" leaves a lot of room for contention. I would argue that what humans do best is look out for themselves and their own survival. I don't know many individuals who would put socializing before their own wants and needs. That could be something interesting to consider in terms of Social Learning Theory: that when it comes down to it, most students value their own learning and their own grades infinitely more than they value those of their classmates.
ReplyDeleteDLT can inform a teacher so that even during lectures the students will be attentive and able to fully understand the topic that is being discussed. Though lectures are not the most concrete, if a teacher is informed by the Developmental Learning Theory, they can use concrete evidence to more efficiently display the information to their students. Unfortunately, too many teachers rely on tests and grades for their only assessment. Therefore, if a student fails a test they assume that the student has not really learned or understood their material. Also, too often teachers assume that lecturing is the only way to teach. This way, if a student fails a test, it simply becomes the student's problem because teachers do not always use assessment as a way of personal reflection and growth.
ReplyDeleteTry to focus your writing. The first half of your post has little to do with SLT. Instead you lament the problems with past teachers and how difficult understanding is, then you get on to SLT.
ReplyDeleteRemember, SLT is a theory about learning, not a theory about teaching. Don't confuse the way that I am teaching with the content you need to learn.