Social Learning Theories

Is all learning social? According to social constructivist learning theory, people create meaning through interactions with others and their environment. In an instructional video, Dr. Orey explained two main concepts that are important to social learning theory: the zone of proximal development and a more knowledgeable other. The zone of proximal development is the point where a student is ready to learn. They have the basic concepts needed to build new knowledge on, and with help, are ready to expand their knowledge. The more knowledgeable other is someone who understands the next level of knowledge and can help a student learn the concept. That person can be a teacher, a peer, a parent, or, as Dr. Orey suggests, possibly a computer. It seems that it would be very difficult to assimilate new knowledge without help of some sort. I would argue that using technology as an individual, some can learn new knowledge without others, but that technology becomes the "more knowledgeable other", according to the definition of social learning theory as elaborated by Dr. Orey.

Cooperative learning is a teaching technique that utilizes social learning theory. When students are placed into small groups and given a "significant question or meaningful project" to contend with and then assessed as a group as well as individuals, that is cooperative learning as defined in the online book Emerging Perspectives on Learning, Teaching, and Technology ( http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/). In Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, the authors recommend using informal, formal, and base groups. These structures directly use the social learning theory. Using an informal group for something like Think-Pair-Share requires students to talk out and discuss what they have learned from a lesson with a partner. They can give each other immediate feedback, creating a social interactive environment. The more knowledgeable other would be one of the pair or the teacher as he/she listens in to discussions.

More formal groupings where students are tackling a problem or project is also a situation where they interact to learn. This needs much planning to be an effective social learning experience. I have used cooperative learning many times, but struggle with getting all students to participate fully. There have been times that some groups will look to me as the more knowledgeable other instead of learning from each other. I need to reorganize how I run those lessons. Chapter seven of Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works gives a short description of components need to make cooperative learning groups successful, but the online book Emerging Perspectives on Learning, Teaching, and Technology describes what is need much more in depth and I think will help me more in implementing effective cooperative learning experiences. The Cooperative Learning section, pages 5-8 is a very valuable resource.

Constructionism Learning Theory

My understanding of constructionism centers on the base word construction. It is about building meaning through building artifacts. Even after reading several articles from a masters class I am taking, I was still not entirely clear. I did a little web search to aid my understanding. I found a simple definition in an excerpt from a book called Constructionism in Practice: Designing, Thinking, and Learning in A Digital World by Yasmin Kafai and Mitchel Resnick (1996). It is about "...the construction of knowledge in the context of building personally meaningful artifacts" (p. 1). Based on this plus an online book excerpt by Michael Orey (2001), constructionism focuses on active learning where the learner is creating a product that he/she can share to show what was learned. The topic has to have some kind of meaningful impact for the student. The student has to see a real world application.

In Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, and Malenoski (2007), describe a teaching strategy, generating and testing hypotheses, that correlates well with constructionism. Building, or constructing meaning comes from problem solving. Students who are actively engaged in building a project or investigating problems have to problem solve. The students start with an idea, research, possibly experiment, and draw conclusions when they are generating and testing hypotheses. If the students are given choices about the subject and it relates to a real world situation, this sets up a meaningful context. The students should also have a choice in the artifact they produce to allow them to display their learning through their individual learning style preferences.

The authors of Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works also suggest using tools such as spreadsheets and chart making software to make the handling of data seamless. This frees up the students to spend time on drawing conclusions and constructing meaning from the data instead of spending too much time just collecting and organizing the data.

Kafai, Y. and Resnick, M. (1996). Constructionism in Practice: Designing, Thinking, and Learning in A Digital World. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Retrieved July 22, 2009, from http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=XaJiLh92ZCUC&oi=fnd&pg=PP13&dq =%22Kafai%22+%22Constructionism+in+practice:+Designing,+thinking,+and+...%22+ &ots=jYlgV1YVPs&sig=OHhtA0WaagJisui1wvmpneKWDiY

Orey, M.(Ed.). (2001). Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology.
Retrieved from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?title=Main_Page

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Cognitive Learning Theory Strategies

My understanding of cognitive learning theory is that it is about how we process information. In communication classes I have taken, I have been taught that as a public speaker, one wants to make between three and seven main points in a speech. Seven ideas is about the most people can focus on at a time. This idea was reinforced by Dr. Orey in his discussion of cognitive learning theories in a Laureate published educational DVD. The carry over to the classroom is that teachers should keep lessons focused on seven or fewer items.

Using cues, questions, and advanced organizers can help students focus on those seven or fewer items, and not become sidetracked by extraneous information. These techniques are explained in Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works. I post weekly cues in my room as a schedule. I write a short description of each day's lesson with a focus on the skills, or learning objectives, the students are trying to master. That way, they know exactly what they are supposed to be learning each day. By explicitly telling students what they are going to learn about, one is helping them through the first stage of information processing, paying attention.

Dr. Orey described three memories: declarative, procedural, and episodic. Each of these help students retain what they learn. Advanced organizers such as rubrics are very useful tools for helping students organize information so it can be processed in their declarative memories. The example rubric explained in chapter four of Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works outlined an English lesson. The students studied sonnets and the Elizabethan period. To make the declarative information of this lesson concrete, the teacher used Excel to create a rubric outlining a sonnet the students had to write. This lesson used elaboration, making connections for the learning objective in more than one way: they read samples, discussed them, and wrote their own.

Using virtual field trips activates episodic memories, the strongest kind of memory, according to Dr. Orey. When the students can see a place online they can not actually go to, it creates a concrete experience that will help them retain the information. The anatomy teacher at my school has used a distance learning lab to have her students watch an autopsy. Could an episodic memory be any more vivid than that? I do not know if she used an advance organizer, but one with a focus on key concepts for students to fill in as they watched the autopsy would help the students with their information processing of the experience.

One last point I really relate to, since I am a strong visual learner, is that using meaningful visuals to associate with key concepts is taking advantage of the dual coding theory explained by Dr. Orey. PowerPoints, charts, and tables are well-adapted technologies to take advantage of this theory. When I explain ethos, pathos, and logos to my students in a persuasion unit, I use a PowerPoint with the term, its definition, and a visual. I also encourage them to use mnemonics to remember what each term means, elaborating the ideas in their minds. One example is ethos. The slide with it has a picture of a man in a prison uniform as well as the definition of the term. Ethos is building your credibility as a persuasive speaker or writer. I need to add a picture of a business peron also to show a contrast of who we trust. I tell the students that I remember ethos sounds like ethics, doing what is right, being trustworthy. This lesson uses an advanced organizer, dual coding, and elaboration.

Positive Reinforcements

I had a few responses about my reward tickets from my last posting. I just thought it might interest some to know that the kinds of rewards seem appealing to a variety of preferences because I asked my students what they would like. The first few days of class, we discuss appropriate behaviors/expectations and consequences/rewards. I ask the students to come up with ideas for these categories. I think that is why they seem to work so well. The rewards are things they want.

Applying Behaviorist Learning Theory to the Classroom

Behaviorism seems inextricable from the classroom. One significant goal of education, no matter what content area is being taught, is to teach behaviors that will help students be successful after school. In Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, and Malenoski explain how to use spreadsheets to help students track their effort. The point is to help students see that more effort equals higher grades. Their grades, and later in life, successes, are not tied to an uncontrollable element like intelligence, rather to effort, which is entirely in their control. Effort is an observable and measurable behavior, the focus of behaviorism. The behaviors students record are note taking, paying attention, participating, doing homework, and studying. When students see their grades increase with the increase of these behaviors, it is a positive reinforcement. The behavior will continue or increase.

Applying this technology to increase these types of behaviors is a strategy that will be very useful to me. I teach a class everyone has to take, high school English. The biggest block for many of my students is a lack of motivation. Each year, I have students who do not trust themselves to be capable, so they do not try. By explicitly teaching them that effort will increase success and using technology to change their study behaviors, I can help my students overcome some of their motivation issues.

Chapter ten in Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works focuses on homework and practice. The strategies in this chapter advocate using online collaborative sites such as wikis. The help students can receive from each other as well as fast feedback from the teacher can be a positive reinforcement. The "fun" and engaging factor of using technology for homework can also be a positive reinforcement for students to continue working on assignments.

Negative reinforcement strategies can also be very effective in changing or continuing certain behaviors. In the article From Emerging Perspectives on Learning, Teaching and Technology, Melissa Standrigde defines negative reinforcement as removing a consequence that students find unpleasant. She listed things such as turning in all assignments on time resulting in the lowest grade being dropped. I give out reward tickets when students complete five ungraded homework assignments. The tickets can be turned back in for a choice of one five point homework pass or one time detention pass from me (negative reinforcement), or an item in a grab bag, use of a cushioned chair for a week, or use of the reading corner for classwork (positive reinforcement). Before I came up with the idea of the reward ticket, I could not get my students to do practice assignments that were too small for a grade. Now, the majority do these assignments.

Behaviorism is very useful for classroom management, improving study habits, and helping students make the connection between effort and success.

Using Technology in my Classroom

I just finished a master's class about the impact of technology on work, society, and teaching. It has been inspiring and frustrating at times. I have learned about new tools for myself as a learner as well how these tools can be used in the classroom. With learning anything new, some of the tools would not work right for me. That was probably because I was not doing something right. Other tools were easy for me to pick up on. Even the ones I had difficulties with are turning out to be worth the effort in my classroom. I just finished using a wiki as a study guide for a novel my freshmen read. They responded so positively to it, it was amazing. I had the highest amount of engagement I have had all year with these students. Two students even emailed me through the wiki to tell me how much they enjoyed and learned from the experience. I am in the process of grading their tests on the novel, but so far, they seem to have a strong understanding of the novel's concepts.

Experimenting with technology in the class is something I have been doing my whole career, probably because I am a digital native; however, taking this class has made me even more aware of how technology can enhance learning. I have come to realize that true learning is self-directed. That means that my class needs to become more student centered, and I need to guide my students in their discoveries, not try to pass on my knowledge to them.

I will continue to learn my whole life and want to inspire that same desire in my students. By trying new things and sharing results with my students, they will see my learning as an example. Developing my personal learning community through connecting with local colleagues and global ones online is my first step to continue my understanding of learning, teaching, and technology.

One of my goals is to help my students become global learners. I need to teach them collaboration and problem solving skills to do this. I must use technology to connect them with others around the world as a step to achieve this goal. Working closely with the technology coordinators at my school, I will set up distance learning experiences, use wikis and blogs to have my students communicate with professionals who might help them make discoveries, and utilize the full potential of the technology I have at my school.

A second goal is to influence my colleagues in their use of technology. I will ask to share technologies I have learned at staff developments. Using department collaboration time will be valuable for working more closely with colleagues as we learn together about technologies.

I am lucky to be in a school that has a vision that includes the further use of technology in the class. I will not take this for granted and use what I have available for my students.

Student Immersion in Technology

It seems that almost all students today are immersed in technology from birth. That, however, does not mean that they are all comfortable with it or proficient at using it. This week, I surveyed my non-accelerated freshman and sophomore English students about their knowledge of and preference for technology. My school in Ohio is very rural, an environment that in the past could have meant that the students would be sheltered and isolated from diversity and world views. With the use of technology, the overwhelming majority of my students are very networked with others.

I looked up existing surveys online and put together a composite to use. My focus was on how much technology they have access to from home and at school, their preference for technology use in my class, and how much time they spend using different technologies. Click on the podcast link below to hear the results of my survey.

Podcast