A Closer Look at Social Learning Theory

Upon reading the two articles provided in class about social learning theory (SLT), there are a few main concepts of the theory that seem to be essential to its understanding. The most important concept that I believe SLT conveys is that people learn from one another, whether that is through observation, imitation, or modeling (Bandura's Theory). The argument presented in the article about Vygotsky discusses that social interaction precedes development, and that consciousness and cognitive processes are a result of social behavior. This is important because it indicates that students will gain their current knowledge through socialization, which has implications in constructivist learning theory (CLT) as well. Students are constantly revising their own theories about concepts and constructing their own meaning of content. SLT implies that learning from others would shape the knowledge that a student constructs.

Also a theme credited to Vygotsky is the idea of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). ZPD is essentially the ability of a student to learn without aid from others and without the material being too difficult to grasp on his or her own. Each student's ZPD shows what they are capable of learning as well as what thoughts they are capable of. ZPD involves the role of other people in a student's learning, which is why it falls within SLT.We have discussed this idea many times in class and I have found that it has many implications throughout the learning theories, though it most directly applies to SLT. What was confusing to me when reading the article on Vygotsky was that is said his theory is one of the foundations of constructivism, when it seemed that his theories applied mostly to SLT. However, this just furthered my understanding that all the different learning theories lead to different implications of ideas in other learning theories. SLT and ZPD can be applied to CLT because active mental engagement (AME) is influenced by where a student's ZPD is in relation to what material is being presented and in what way. AME also has implications in developmental learning theory (DLT) because if an idea is presented in a more concrete way, a student is more likely to be actively mentally engaged.

All of these ideas are just the beginnings of the implications that learning theories offer about how students learn. Social learning theory is just one way to look at the learning process, and it can be readily applied with other learning theories as well. I think it is important for educators to be aware of learning theories so that they know how their students are processing (or not processing) information and how they can make the information easier to learn.