Social Learning
Learning By Watching, Learning by Modeling
March 6, 2021
Two weeks ago, a friend sent me a video on making a blueberry oat muffin from TikTok, a social networking site for videos. The next day, I decided to try the recipe by observing what the person did. It was so delicious that I posted a picture of the muffin and the TikTok video to my stories on Facebook, a social networking site. After posting, I had four friends messaged me that they want to make this recipe too. Each person followed the video and sent a picture of their muffin. With one video, everyone learned to make a blueberry oat muffin through observational learning.
According to Cherry (2019), observational learning refers to, "the process of learning through watching others, retaining the information, and then replicating the behaviors observed. ” With the blueberry oat muffin, I learned through modeling what someone else did. Observational learning is replicating the behavior of someone else. An example would be the kid who yelled at his mom for a cupcake. He reproduced how his mom talks to him as he learns from mom how to behave (PenPaperPencil, 2014). A great deal of the learning that we do happens by watching others and modeling what they are doing.
However, learning does not necessarily lead to a behavior change. For example, a child may learn how to ride a bike by watching others. To learn how to ride a bicycle unassisted, the child needs to observe and retain how the knowledgeable other is sitting on their bicycle and pedaling their bicycle. Then, the child will perform the act of pedaling the bike unassisted and gain motivation by getting rewarded for going so many minutes with no help (Cherry, 2019). Observational learning has several steps before mastering a new skill.
This week, we took our learning to Pinterest, a discovery board for finding new ideas such as recipes, travel ideas, and more. Pinterest allows you to pin ideas found on a board that you can reference whenever you want. For this assignment, I was to pin to our class Pinterest board after each reading I completed. With each pin, I had to name an affordance and a constraint. When I first looked at the boards already pinned, I was overwhelmed by the amount of information posted. After scrolling through several ideas, I realized that technology makes us smarter by enhancing our cognitive performance (Saloman and Perkins, 2005). In other words, we can acquire knowledge through our experiences. Every time I watch a new Tiktok video or find a pin, I take that knowledge and apply it to the real world by modeling the behavior I watch. Over time, I will use the skills I learn through technology or real-world experiences and gain expertise. When I look at learning a new tool, I will embrace the affordances and constraints it brings to enhance my cognitive abilities. Social learning brightens my horizons to lifelong experiences.