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Key Topics
- Requirement
- Solution
- Role of Social Interaction in Children's Learning
- Applications of Vygotsky's Theory of Social Interaction
- Vygotsky's Cultural-Historical Viewpoint
- Inter-subjectivity of Social Constructivism
- Bandura’s Social Learning Theory
- Observational learning
- Mediational Processes
- References
Requirement
Discuss the idea that social interactions play a fundamental role in effective learning and teaching. Reflect on your participation in this subject and particularly in the online discussions forums. You should consider the ways that your interactions with others in these forums influenced your learning in the subject. In your reflections, provide specific examples to support your argument . Then using your reflection and relevant reading consider what this means in your practice as an educator.
Solution
Role of Social Interaction in Children's Learning
Lev Vygotsky (1896 - 1934) put across interesting arguments regarding social development in the lives of children. The theory propounded by him is one of the foundations of constructivism. The three major themes being asserted by the theory are as follows:
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Social Interaction plays a vital role as far as cognitive development in the life of a child is concerned. It was in a sharp contrast to Jean Piaget’s hypothesis about the child development that emphasized on the fact that development necessarily precedes learning. However, according to Vygotsky, social learning comes before the development. He proposed that each and every function in the lives of children’s cultural development appears twice – firstly, on the social level and then on the individual level. In other words, the development occurs firstly among them (inter-psychological) and then inside them (intra-psychological).
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The concept of More Knowledgeable Other (MKO) refers to the fact that any person who has a better understanding or a greater level of capability with regards to a particular task, process or conception. The MKO is generally regarded as being a teacher, coach or any experienced person. However, it also suggests someone who is anybody’s friend, philosopher or guide (Kozulin, 2003).
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Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) refers to the distance between a child’s ability to perform a task under the guidance of an adult and/or with the collaboration of their peers with their independent problem solving ability. According to Vygotsky, this is the very zone where most of the learning takes place.
Vygotsky effectively laid his emphasis on the connections happening among people and the socio-cultural context in which they act and interact with shared experiences. He added that humans utilize the tools that usually develop from a culture, as is the case of speech and writing in order to mediate their social environments. Therefore, the initial motive on the part of the children for learning these tools is to perform social functions by the way of communication. Subsequently, as Vygotsky believed, these tools are immensely helpful for the people to make them look within and therefore they lead to higher thinking skills (Vygotsky, L. S. 1997).
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Applications of Vygotsky's Theory of Social Interaction
The most important and prominent aspect in terms of application of Vygotsky’s theory is the concept of Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). It is very vital because teachers profusely use it as a guide for the development of a child. It provides an important insight for the teachers to know as to what a student would able to achieve via the use of a mediator and therefore enables the teacher to help the child in achieving that level all by themselves.
ZPD is the major theme of the theoretical framework propounded by Vygotsky in which the social interaction plays a significant role in the development of cognition. In view of this, the full development of ZPD is directly proportional to full social interaction ("Social Development Theory", 2014). Therefore, the range of skill that could be developed with the help of adult guidance or peer collaboration greatly exceeds what could be achieved alone. This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate as actual relationships between individuals.
The second crucial aspect of Vygotsky’s constructivist theory is the role of play in his theory. As per this perceptive, teachers are required to provide the children a lot of opportunities to play. With the help of play and imagination, the conceptual capabilities of a child get enhanced. The argument proffered by him was that play leads to development. The act of imitating the elders in culturally patterned activities, ensures that the children create opportunities for their intellectual development. They start their play by the recollections and reenactments of the real situations. Subsequently, with the help of their dynamics of their imagination and recognition regarding the implicit rules governing the activities that they had reproduced in their plays, children obtain an elementary mastery of abstract thoughts.
Vygotsky’s theory attempts towards explaining consciousness being the end product of socialization. For example, while learning the language on the part of a child, his first utterances with his peers and adults are for the purpose of communication and once mastered they get internalized and allow inner speech ("Social Development Theory", 2015).
The opportunity for social interaction with others for the development of all the children is very crucial in more ways than few. Via these interactions, children begin to establish a sense of ‘self’ as well as to learn what expect of them. For very young children, these interactions predominantly occur within the family, and as they grow and develop, they feel the need to play and interact with children. While playing with each other, children learn appropriate social behaviors, such as sharing, cooperating and respecting others. Taking this view, encouraging the children who are having some form of disabilities to play together is an exceptionally important part of instruction in integrated preschools. Therefore, the children must be given the opportunity to play together if they are to become friends. Such social interactions fills the disabled children with positivity which eventually benefit them in their lives.
The children who get involved in the learning of appropriate social skills usually have a higher self-esteem as well as show greater willingness to interact with their surroundings as they grow. Social interaction is not only needed to enhance the development during the early years, but is also extremely crucial for the future of disabled children. It also provides the ability to acquire the skill-set which is required throughout in life and may affect future educational and vocational opportunities. Teachers and other adults also can promote interactions by teaching children specific ways to ask other children to play, to share toys, to take turns, to express affection and to help other children. Planning small group activities that require cooperation and sharing motivates socially interactive behavior (Denhere, Chinyoka, & Mambeu, 2013). For example, painting a mural or making soup as a group encourages children to learn to work together.
Vygotsky's Cultural-Historical Viewpoint
Lev Vygotsky’s constructivist theory take a view of cultural-historical theory of cognitive development. It is based on the role of culture in the development of higher mental functions, as far as speech and reasoning among the children are concerned. His theory is sometimes also referred to as constituting a socio-cultural perspective. In other words, the theory emphasizes the importance of society and culture for inculcating cognitive development.
Vygotsky had a firm belief that adults in a society help in fostering children’s cognitive development in an intentional as well as systematic way by engaging them in challenging and meaningful activities. Through formal as well as informal conversation, in order to impart education, adults convey to children the way their culture interprets and interprets and responds to the world. As per his observations, the way adults interact with children, they should show the meanings they attach to objects, events and experiences. He further adds that thoughts and language get increasingly independent in the first few years in the lives of the children (Hedegaard, 2009).
The social activities greatly affect the complex mental processes. As the children grow, they gradually internalize the processes they use in social contexts and also begin to use them independently. The internalization process that occurs in this way, allows the children to transform ideas and processes to shape them in uniquely.
Children can perform more challenging tasks when assisted by more advanced and competent individuals. Vygotsky identified two levels of development: actual development, which is the upper limit of tasks a child can perform individually, and level of potential development, which is the upper limit of tasks a child can perform with the assistance of a more competent individual.
Inter-subjectivity of Social Constructivism
As has already been mentioned that social constructivism focuses the importance of culture and context in order to understand what actually occurs in the society and in turn constructing knowledge based on this understanding. The concept of social constructivism is purely based on certain assumptions about reality, knowledge and learning. In order to understand and apply models of instruction that are established in the prospects of social constructivists, it is crucial to know their premises. The elements of assumptions are:
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Reality: social constructivism takes a view that reality is constructed through human activities. The people residing in societies also invent the properties of the world. According to the social constructivists, reality cannot be discovered as it ceases to exist prior to its social invention.
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Knowledge: the social constructivists believe that knowledge is a human product and is therefore, socially and culturally constructed (Kim, 2016). People create meaning through their interactions with each other as well as with the environment they live in.
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Learning: social constructivists believe that learning as a social process. It does not take place only within an individual not is it a passive development behaviors that are shaped by external forces. By engaging in social activities, meaningful learning occurs to the individuals.
Inter-subjectivity refers to a shared understanding among the individuals who interact on the basis of common interests and assumptions that paves a fertile ground for their communication. Interactions and communications necessitate socially agreed-upon ideas of the world and social patterns and rules of the language used. Therefore, inter-subjectivity among people is helpful in the construction of social meanings. The knowledge and social meanings are shaped and evolved via the process of negotiation within the communicating group. Any personal meanings that are shaped through these experiences get influenced by the inter-subjectivity of the community to which the people belong.
Apart from providing ground for communication, inter-subjectivity also helps people to extend their understanding regarding new information and activities among the group members. Knowledge is the element which is derived from interactions between individuals and their environments that reside within cultures. The construction of knowledge is also affected by the formation of inter-subjectivity on account of cultural and historical factors of the community. When the members of the community are aware of their inter-subjective meanings, it is easier for them to understand new information and activities that arise in the community.
Bandura’s Social Learning Theory
The Social Learning Theory proposed by Albert Bandura is in alignment with the behaviorist learning theories of classical conditioning and operant conditioning. However, he added two crucial ideas:
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Mediating processes occur between stimuli and responses.
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Behavior is grasped from the environment through the process of observational learning.
Observational learning
According to Bandura, children observe the people around them behaving in certain ways. In this conceptual approach, the individuals being observed are called models. The society let children to be surrounded by various influential models such as parents within the family, comic characters, friend among peer group and teachers at schools. Children pay a close attention on these models in order to encode and imitate their behavior. These observations are being carried on by them to the later stages of their lives regardless of whether the behavior is gender appropriate or not (Bandura & Walters 1963).
Firstly, children are more likely to pay attention to and imitate those people they perceive as similar to themselves. Consequently, they are more likely to imitate behavior modeled by people of the same sex.
Secondly, the people who are present around the children would like to respond to the behavior they imitate with either reinforcement or punishment. If any particular child imitates the behavior of a model and the results are rewarding, then he/she continues to perform the behavior. The reinforcement can be either external/internal or positive/negative. For example, the approval being sought from parents or peers is external reinforcement and the feeling of happiness or sadness that is generated after approval is said to be internal. The positive (or for that matter negative) reinforcement would have little influence if the reinforcement which is offered externally is not in alignment with an individual’s needs. The important aspect that is needed to remember here is that the positive or negative reinforcement leads to a change in a person’s behavior.
Thirdly, the children are a lot likely to take into account of what happens to other people while deciding whether or not to copy somebody’s actions. It is fact that a person learns by observing the consequences of other’s behavior (Grusec, 1992). This is related to the attachment to specific models that contain qualities which are seen as rewarding. So, the children will have a number of models with whom they identify. These could be the people in their immediate world. The motivation that comes to them to identify themselves with a particular model is because they must have the quality which the model possesses. Identification occurs with another person (the model) and involves taking on (or adopting) observed behaviors, values, beliefs and attitudes of the person with whom you are identifying.
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The usual description of Social Learning Theory is that it acts as a bridge between traditional learning theory (i.e. behaviorism) and the cognitive methodology due to the involvement of mental (cognitive) factors while learning. Bandura believed that humans are potentially active information processors who think about the relationship between their behavior and their consequences. The observational learning is incomplete unless cognitive processes were at work. So, these mental factors in turn mediate in the process of learning in order to determine whether a new response is acquired. Thus, the children do not automatically observe the behavior of a model to imitate it (McLeod, 2011). There are some thoughts which are preceded before imitation that are called as mediational processes. It happens between observing the behavior (stimulus) and imitating it or not (response).
Bandura’s model can be represented in the following way:
Behaviorist Model (only study observable/ external behavior)
Cognitive Model (scientifically studies internal behavior)
The four mediational processes propounded by Bandura are as follows:
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Attention: for any behavior to be imitated, particularly by the children, it has to grab everyone’s attention. It is therefore extremely important in whether a behavior has an influence in others imitating it.
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Retention: it is described as how well the behavior is remembered. It is important therefore that a memory of the behavior is formed to be performed later by the observer.
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Reproduction: it is the ability to perform the behavior that the model has just demonstrated.
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Motivation: according to Bandura, if the perceived rewards outweighs the perceived costs (if there are any) then the behavior will be more likely to be imitated by the observer.
The social learning theory is not the complete explanation for all kinds of behaviors. It is specifically the case when there is no apparent role model in an individual’s life in order to imitate a particular behavior.
References
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Bandura, A., & Walters, R. H. (1963). Social learning and personality development (Vol. 14). New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
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Denhere, C., Chinyoka, K., & Mambeu, J. (2013). Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development Theory: What are its Implications for Mathematical Teaching?. Greener Journal Of Social Sciences, 3(7), 371-377. http://dx.doi.org/10.15580/gjss.2013.7.052213632
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Grusec, J. (1992). Social learning theory and developmental psychology: The legacies of Robert Sears and Albert Bandura. Developmental Psychology, 28(5), 776-786. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.28.5.776
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Hedegaard, M. (2009). Children's Development from a Cultural–Historical Approach: Children's Activity in Everyday Local Settings as Foundation for Their Development. Mind, Culture, And Activity, 16(1), 64-82. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10749030802477374
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Kim, B. (2016). Social Constructivism - Emerging Perspectives on Learning, Teaching and Technology.Epltt.coe.uga.edu. Retrieved 30 May 2016, from http://epltt.coe.uga.edu/index.php?title=Social_Constructivism
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Kozulin, A. (2003). Vygotsky's educational theory in cultural context. UK: Cambridge University Press.
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McLeod, S. (2011). Albert Bandura | Social Learning Theory | Simply Psychology.Simplypsychology.org. Retrieved 30 May 2016, from http://www.simplypsychology.org/bandura.html
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Social Development Theory. (2014). Learning Theories. Retrieved 30 May 2016, from http://www.learning-theories.com/vygotskys-social-learning-theory.html
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Social Development Theory. (2015). Instructionaldesign.org. Retrieved 30 May 2016, from http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/social-development.html
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Vygotsky, L. S. (1997). The collected works of LS Vygotsky: Problems of the theory and history of psychology (Vol. 3). Springer Science & Business Media.
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