Dan Taylor — IDE621: Principles of Instruction and Learning, FA24
Social learning theory was an interesting unit for me. As a learner, I identify with social learning theory. It reflects much of my in-person formal education — for example, dance classes are full of imitation and live modeling. As is singing — there is much imitation and live modeling, and it’s so very human to experience performance and see how it’s shaping everyone and what they are taking away from the experience. Their learning, as it were.
While studying social learning theory, a few moments stood out to me. The first was vicarious reinforcement, which states that we reinforce our own thinking and the learning of others who observe us. That’s a huge impact when you stop to consider it. It’s a shared responsibility and experience that we construct together. The second big moment was wrapping my head around reciprocal causation. Initially, this was a bit frustrating because the logic seemed to have switched from my instincts. I read a few examples, which confused me even more. However, when creating my infographic, the relationships between behavior, person, and environment hit home. I needed to talk through it by building the graphic elements and understanding their relationship through the motion contained within the illustration.
However, in my experience designing almost exclusively asynchronous instruction, I had to think more creatively about how to apply the theory in practice. I don’t often interact with the learners benefiting from the work I do, and it was more difficult to imagine how the theory could serve me in my asynchronous instructional design. I thought about the more social moments that occur in asynchronous courses. One place is in discussions, which has me re-evaluating their value. There’s a ton of vicarious reinforcement in online discussion. While my observations may be in the form of reading and writing, I have the opportunity to see how others react to posts, how the professor responds, the types of ideas people point out, and how people engage with discourse.
Another aspect of social learning theory that applies to asynchronous instruction is finding opportunities to build avenues to improve learner self-efficacy and self-regulation. For example, finding the right words of encouragement, perhaps on a page where things are about to get more complicated, to guide the learner toward creating excitement to push through the task. Or, tying back to discussions, tailoring the discussion so that learners can talk about what was difficult or easy and share how they worked through a complex problem (much like I am now).
Lastly, since IDE621 is a hybrid course, I have welcomed the opportunity to have synchronous sessions. We have been using collaborative learning all along. It’s come full circle to have the experience of increasing my knowledge working with classmates and having the fuller picture of examining it from the lens of an instructional designer.