Where Everybody Knows Your Screen Name: Incorporating Social Learning in the Asynchronous Online Classroom
In this episode, Amalie and Camie explore incorporating social learning in the asynchronous online classroom.
Bandura's Bobo Doll Experiment
Transcript
Transcript
::It's not always necessarily intentional imitation.
::Welcome to the Pedagogy toolkit in.
::this episode, Amalie and Camie discuss social learning in the asynchronous online classroom. Have you ever caught yourself picking up slang terms or behaviors from your kids or friends?
::Or notice your child or niece or nephew imitating one of their older siblings.
::I'm really guilty of this, especially when I was teaching high school.
::Became really easy to pick up these slang terms from from the kids, it's.
::Cringey, as they say.
::It's embarrassing because you are clearly the.
::Old person using that, but you can't help it. It's you. You pick it up.
::Without even thinking about it, I I.
::Became a person that says bro.
::I did bro I.
::I I think maybe I.
::Made fun of somebody one too many times.
::And it just it's it's.
::Stuck. But it's I heard it so many times every day, all day long that now bro.
::What do you want me to?
::Do about that bro.
::I can't help myself.
::I'm going to say that.
::Whether it's people or books.
::Or especially if it's a or a TV series.
::I will start using the language.
::If it's a book.
::Sometimes I will accidentally pick up an accent from a TV series. I'd like to say movies, but really it's not movies. It's something that I watch like repeatedly. Like, you know, it's usually like it's some kind of a, like, Downton Abbey.
::I am not trying to be English, I swear, but every now and then when.
::I've been watching.
::That too long. Something will come out, or I'll say.
::Something like.
::Bully and not. I'm like what?
::Where? Where did that come from? Because that was not.
::In my regular language.
::That was my accent. Does change quite a bit depending on where I am. For any length of time and that's I lived in. I've lived in Saint Louis and New York and London.
::And it changes a little bit.
::With each of those.
::Places and you fall into it without even meaning to.
::Or or you imitate the person that you're talking to. You mirror not. It's not even invitation. No, it's not intentional, it's it's mirroring. And I had a a friend in college that that asked me.
::Intentionally, yeah.
::That noticed me do it in the grocery store and I didn't even know I was doing it. I started speaking to the woman that was checking us out and I in the same sort of vernacular or.
::The same.
::Accent that she was and as we left, my friend looked at.
::Me and said.
::Deep are can you carry a tune?
::And I was like, I don't, I mean kind of enough, you know, I'm not a singer, but I can do it. And she said, I'm convinced that people who can imitate accents can also carry a tune because it's all about being able to.
::Hear it?
::Which I thought was really interesting.
::But thought that for.
::I didn't even long, I didn't even notice.
::I was doing it until.
::Until after I said, you know, thanks and goodbye and turned. And my friend was staring at me like I had three heads.
::Well, yeah, it's it's.
::Not something that you necessarily think about or even do intentionally, but.
::I definitely find myself picking up words that.
::Whoever is around me or whatever is around me leave me.
::In bugs.
::Use on a regular basis and then.
::I'm one who likes to.
::Revisit old books.
::So you know if I'm.
::In my Mansfield Park era, back in my 20s, I may read this in the book, and then again we'll immediately pick up that language usage.
::Were you a kid that narrated your your life in your head?
::I know there there's been some some talk lately about that. There are people who don't.
::Have an internal monologue.
::And I do have an internal model log, but it was often in the style of whatever I was reading at the time, so I would sort of narrate everything I was doing as though I was the writer.
::So my internal monologue is.
::Less is not really a narration of what I'm doing, it's more a conversation with.
::OK. Yes.
::Myself. Yeah, OK.
::So it's more commentary than narration.
::I like that I've done that too.
::But it I mean it is affected by what I'm watching or what.
::I'm listening to.
::Or what? I'm yes, incredibly so. And and you kind of start viewing it through those lenses. So if you are reading something historical and that's I think why I keep going back to it because it's so noticeable for me if.
::I'm reading something historical.
::You start thinking kind of through those perspectives as well, patterns, your language that changes.
::It's you go.
::You know, you start kind of comparing the way you're doing something to.
::How it was done in the book or in the TV series that you were watching?
::And we also do this without.
::Realizing it in terms of social media, you know the rise of the influencer is #1.
::But #2 A lot of times, some of these things that we love so much, like so deVOL kitchens, is a brand and they kind of have this particular style where they put like, the long kitchen table in the kitchen and they have not like the traditional.
::Not let's not say traditional, but the regularly used kitchen cabinets instead they use like these custom built cabinets that.
::Are less modern, so it's not like the the modern cabinets that you would see like above your kitchen counters.
::They may use more of like a pantry style cabinet and you see a lot of that and people start ohh Downton Abbey has it like this or you know something and so you start seeing more and more of those things take shape even in our daily lives in.
::Interior designs in our fashion.
::You know, the Met puts on its event and it has a certain style and then that is the style. Suddenly everywhere people are trying to imitate some of these things and when I say imitate. Sometimes it is intentional. But a lot of.
::Times you just start picking it up because once it is, you know, infiltrates through a society.
::It just becomes pervasive and you don't even recognize that.
::It's really an iteration of something else.
::I like that.
::Thinking of it as infiltration because that is I mean because that is sort of what it is and not in any kind of negative way. It's just that's it, it sort of seeps in in little little bits and pieces. It's not, it's not all of a sudden.
::One day you saw.
::A thing and decided that's the only color I'm going to want ever there is this.
::Sort of Teal sea foam blue kind of color right now. And I looked around my house the other day and realized that half of my stuff that I've bought in the last two years is this color.
::and chairs and pillows and blankets and it, it was 1 little bit at a time and that color became really popular. And you start seeing it.
::Everywhere and it's what you you end up picking up. So all these things kind of.
::I used to see it when I was training my dogs. I had one dog in particular who learned really well by watching what the other dogs were doing. So I would train my other dogs in front of him.
::And he would learn by watching. So I didn't have to explicitly train him. He could see what they were doing and would.
::Go that way.
::So yeah, and these things that we see that you know kind of infiltrate a little by little that is learning and it's a phenomenon that can be explained by social learning theory.
::Social learning theory tells us that people learn new behaviors by observing and imitating others.
::Even as adults.
::We are all constantly learning through our social environment.
:: hologist Albert Bender in the: ::You probably remember his Bobo doll experiment that as soon as I hear his name, that's what my mind flashes to because as.
::So explain that experiment for people who don't know.
::Yeah. So as a psychology teacher in high school, when I was teaching K12, I actually had a preset curriculum and this video was part of the curriculum, and I can't tell you how many times I've had to explain this to students.
::Who? Just?
::Did not quite understand the concept of summarizing what's happening in the video.
::And in the in the Bobo doll experiment, a Bandera had a it's a blow up doll. It was called Bobo's Little clown. It was. It's kind of like a I don't know if you have one. When you were a kid. I I think my brother had one of these, but it wasn't called Bobo by.
::You know the 80s.
::So it was.
::Something else, and it was just like it's a straight up does not have like arms.
::Or anything like that.
::Cause it's just like a picture of the doll on.
::This inflatable and.
::That's about, you know, maybe 3 feet tall.
::And and.
::So you blow this.
::All up, it stands up and the idea is you can punch it and it comes back up or take it sort of sort.
::Of like a
::Yes, sort of like a weeble. An inflatable large weeble, yes, OK.
::Believe that it's like an inflatable weeble, so children were.
::In different groups, some of them were on their own. Some of them saw in adults.
::Treat the Bobo doll meanly.
::Some of them saw an adult treat it kindly.
::And they observed how the children reacted to this and the children were then given a chance to play with.
::The Bobo doll.
::And there were other toys in the room as well, so they could have done that. And some of them did. Some of them. And the ones who saw the adults being mean to the toys.
::They were also made to the toys and the ones who saw the adults being kind to the toys were also kind to the toys and so.
::This is kind of the basis of banderas's social learning theory is that these children observe.
::The action of the adults and then mimicked it.
::So there's modeling and and mimicking in that.
::Yeah, you, you model it. There's the observance and that's kind of the key. Like someone saw this and then repeated that action.
::UM and it's not always.
::You know a 1 to 1. So just because you saw this one time doesn't mean that that's necessarily going to happen. But in this experiment it, you know, that was kind of the theme that they saw happening the most often and.
::The basic idea is that people learn by interacting with their environment, especially through observing others they identify with in some way.
::And then they replicate these absurd behaviors through imitation and modeling. And I think, like we discussed earlier, it's not always necessarily intentional imitation.
::Right.
::Experiment that I keep coming back to and I know it's been mostly debunked or debunked. Isn't the right word, but it it it brought to light different things than I think what it was intended to bring to light was the Stanford prison experiment, where you have people that sort of fall into the roles of what they have been.
::What they assume, what they know of that role to be so sort of following the models of what they have seen.
::Yeah, yeah.
::And we all do this because we are.
::Inherently social, even Vygotsky prior to Bandera that I mean, and this is, you know, kind of the basis of Bandura's experiments here.
::Believed in that kind of community or social learning that we learn through social interaction, that we need others to learn and can we learn our on our own? Yes, sure, absolutely. But it's just the idea that.
::That can be helpful and and even vigodsky specifically talked about like mentors and people who are going to model things for you because because you need that and we think about these things in terms of.
::You know, face to face interactions.
::Or teaching a a skill a how to do something a behavior. But there are things.
::Right beyond that.
::Yes, there, there are things well beyond that. And so Bendera actually identified 3 different models for this social learning process. One is the live model where those real life individuals demonstrate those behaviors. The other is the verbal instruction model where.
::Behaviors are explained in in descriptions.
::And that's your how to instructions instruction.
::Yes, you're held to instructions.
::And I think about that.
::A lot.
::With kind of the maybe silent generation, because that's kind of how they grew up learning was the instructions were on.
::Books they didn't have YouTube videos, right? Yeah.
::So that visual wasn't always there for them, and sometimes it was in.
::The book, but maybe not this right.
::We've gone back and looked at that.
::And then the third one is the symbolic model and that is through fictional characters. You know, we talked earlier about books and movies or TV series. Those fictional characters demonstrate behaviors.
::So that's another sort of a replication of the social.
::Model and that.
::I think probably also explains why and I know I've talked about it in other episodes that when you can build a course with something resembling A narrative structure, we tend to.
::Relate to and attach to and and get more out of something if it has.
::A storyline and ultimately that is having characters in it and having.
::And so if you can place yourself.
::Within a story.
::That's sort of what narrative does it allows you to place yourself in a story and place yourself in a social situation where you can.
::Mimic or pick up or take on those.
::I feel like I'm going to start narrating my life now. So. So, yeah. So while these things.
::It can be done in.
::Person you can see that they also can be done without having to have someone right there in front of you, and that plays right into our asynchronous online environment because in asynchronous courses we're not right there with our students, we're not face to face with them, but.
::We do have.
::Within our tool resources.
::Really pretty good options for engaging in social learning and building that social structure within our online course.
::This kind of gets.
::Back to why it's so, so important for.
::For our students to, This is why it's so important in our asynchronous classes for the students to be humanized.
::For there to be a community, it's not just a community because it makes you feel good, or because it it sounds pretty it's because.
::You're more likely to learn in that social environment, and if you can make it.
::A community.
::So making sure that when students recognize we've.
::All been in a an online forum where because someone can be anonymous.
::They can act out, they can.
::Go completely off script.
::But when it.
::When it becomes clear that those are real people.
::A real part of a community.
::That you have a real relationship with.
::That that builds A deeper connection to make.
::Deeper learning.
::And so the, that's another way we can that's that's why that's so important in the asynchronous classroom because they are.
::Not in front. We have to make sure that we are intentionally making sure every person is a person in that class.
::Right. Because I mean, when you look someone in the face, it's very different than having than just doing that on a screen. And so making this an intentional part of the class design that makes a big difference. And I think sometimes.
::You know, just general.
::Courses, whether they're in person or online. If it's not a cohort of students, we often build less community in those courses. But if it's a cohort.
::We kind of approach it differently and I feel like maybe that's one of the keys is treating every class like it's a.
::Cohort I.
::Have started to think a lot more about.
::That lately, how much?
::Benefit a lot of classes would get from structuring the programs around cohorts when possible. That limits some of your individual.
::From individualizing, the plan of approach, but it at least.
::Yeah. When you know when you already know who's going to.
::Be in your class when.
::You already know who.
::The people are around you and you can go ahead and build that. You can take risks.
::You can say the things that you need to say. You can ask the questions that you need to ask without feeling uncomfortable.
::And I will.
::Say it is.
::Easier to start with the cohort because generally A cohort has a purpose like you know where they're going. You know what their goal is because it's a specific program.
::They're doing very specific things and in the general courses you're going to have people who are doing lots of different things. And so it does take intentionality to bring that together into one thing. If you have people going five different ways.
::You know how how do you connect them?
::One of the ways that I think that that can be.
::Done really well in an.
::Asynchronous class is to do small group discussions and it be the same small group.
::Throughout the course.
::Where there are maybe times when everybody is in the same discussion board, but if you've got this a discussion board that it's these same five people or these same four people and they can develop those smaller communities without.
::Having to try and do that with 25 people or 30 people or 150 people, if you've.
::Got a big?
::Class. Yes, it it does make a big difference and.
::Also, that's kind of how you can bring the jigsaw method to online asynchronous courses and for those of you who have not heard of the jigsaw before and what it does is you divide students and groups.
::Each one of the students goes.
::To this first group, and they're all the same, right? They all learn about the same thing.
::They get that same part then.
::They go to a second group.
::The bigger class, if you will, so you can do it in two ways. You can make them go to a second small group and pull one person from each of the four groups to make that second small group, which is a.
::Little more complicated.
::Or you just pull them onto the big class and then you have these four components where four groups, let's say that you have, you know.
::Four groups of five. So you got 20 students. You pull them back to the big group and.
::Have each of the four groups kind of report out on there what they became an expert in and explain it to the.
::Other three groups I've used that when when I have several different articles that I need the class to read, I don't need them to read it in super high depth. I need them to get all the basic information from it, so I'll split them into four groups. Each group gets a different article.
::They read it, they discuss it, they pull out the salient points, and then they report those back to the class. The class is a lot.
::More likely to get something out of that, hearing it from their peers, hearing it from different people instead of just hearing me.
::Drone on the points of this many pieces. It also gives them the opportunity to teach the thing that they read, which is another.
::About that.
::Which is like the highest.
::Yeah, it's one of the. It's an excellent way for you to judge whether they are actually getting the information and it makes them stop and think about how to present that information to other people. So you get you kind of.
::You you kill a.
::Whole bunch of birds with one stone.
::Yeah. And if you can teach a topic or article how much better are you going to be? If you can explain it to someone else, you're.
::Going to have to understand.
::It first another great way that I've seen recently.
::Is that?
::In Ultra, there's a way that you.
::Can add.
::A collaborative document.
::And I've seen in a class where students have this collaborative document.
::And for every lecture.
::They took notes.
::Altogether in this collaborative document, and if students had a question or felt unclear about a concept, they could write a question. One of the other students who did understand that perspective would come in and explain it to them. And so there was a lot of peer tutoring and.
::Just this kind of filling in the gaps for each other and at the end of the.
::Semester they had this.
::Document that was there with all of the major concepts and themes, with explanations and comments to help them kind of better understand it, to take away with them.
::Well, what a great preparation.
::For work.
::He's not just.
::Projects that like you and I have worked on together where we both we bring some of the same knowledge, but then we each bring some different knowledge and some different skills.
::And how useless would it be if we both brought exactly the same knowledge, got exactly the same thing?
::From what we are reading.
::Seeing or doing, that's not much of A collaborative group. That's just.
::A bunch of identical.
::Brains doing the same thing. Which?
::Alright, cheers.
::Is is not what a work environment needs.
::Well, and also you know you and I don't always have the same schedule.
::Sometimes, especially when we're in the heat of development season, when we're going to a million meetings.
::And and so often this is how we work. We just have a collaborative document and we make notes to each other.
::If you are in research and have ever had.
::A co-author.
::That's also how that happens. You don't, you know, sit down together and build at the same time. You know you're building on each other.
::When I taught asynchronous debate.
::We did written debates.
::And that was where the first person had to write their first argument. The second person had to write their their rebuttal and their next argument, and it just became this.
::Cycle where they they wrote their rebuttal and then their next their follow up point and then the next person came in and wrote it. But it was a shared document and that's what they.
::Yeah, worked through and it actually worked. Really really.
::Well, and you know, once your documents, you can always go back and you can track changes if you want, you can go back and see kind of the history of versioning. So it's it's really helpful to to be able to collaborate in that way.
::Especially in asynchronous online courses, when you're working with people with very different schedules, but that's a.
::Way to connect.
::And build on each others knowledge.
::There's sort of a different form of modeling, and it's essentially how you end up scaffolding what you're doing in a course. So you're still modeling, you might have them do this one particular part first. So sequencing how you give them the instructions.
::Sequencing how you give them the the modeling yourself sequencing, how those things go so that they can piece them together in an order that makes sense to them.
::Yeah. And I will say too sometimes if you give people too much at one time, they can't parse out the important things. And yes, I do know that the skill that people need, but.
::We want them parsing out and spending their energy on the topic that you're doing in your course, not your instructions.
::We've talked a lot in several of these episodes about how important clear instructions are.
::I I I.
::I don't really mean to bring it.
::Up it just.
::It's important, yes, it's critical. It's and. And we talked about this in the last couple of episodes. It's so critical in asynchronous because you are not standing in front of those students because you can't.
::Make a joke and.
::Wink, you know, there isn't.
::That that piece of.
::You can't add your your nonverbals in the moment you can record yourself. You can do those things, but you can't rely on that. Only you have to have super clear instructions.
::And that's.
::This is sort of an slightly off topic, but one of the ways.
::That I would.
::Work with students to have them understand the importance of of verbal instructions of written instructions was I would put them in pairs and have them sit on their hands.
::And teach one person sits on their hands and then they teach the other person to tie their shoes. The way they tie their shoes.
::Right. And they have to do it with words. They can't demonstrate. They can't do little motions, they they can't draw it. They can't give any visual.
::They have to.
::Give it so that they can understand the importance of using the right words and using the right syntax and using the right descriptions.
::And ordering it correctly putting it.
::In that order. It's one of those. That's the.
::That's fine. I can teach somebody how to tie their shoes. And then you realize how everybody ties their shoes a little bit differently. And if you're teaching them how to tie.
::The shoes, the way you tie your shoes.
::You're you're.
::Asking them to do.
::Something totally different that you have never thought about how you.
::Right.
::Put into words.
::Well, and I think a lot of times we take for granted the simple things that we do because.
::When it's something very easy, then it seems like it should be easy and obvious to us.
::But because we all come with different perspectives, there's no way that that it's easy and obvious in the same way, right?
::Like if you use Bunny ears and I'm going around.
::The tree. Then you know exactly.
::It does matter.
::And so getting to know your students, taking into account where they're coming from.
::That's a big.
::Step encouraging them to get to know each.
::Other is like, especially if they're going to be working in groups, yes, at all and and like only mentioned earlier. Those small groups, especially if they're small groups that you can continue throughout the course.
::Because that's how they'll get to know each other and work together.
::Social learning theory can be applied with things like recorded lectures or announcements that give verbal instructional modeling. This can be something that if you notice students are struggling, you put out a little video in your announcement saying hey, I noticed you know, in this area students were struggling.
::Here's a different perspective on that or, you know, let me add.
::Is that with some different resources? That's verbal instruction modeling. There you can also do it with.
::Curated reading list that enables symbolic modeling. Now many of you curate reading list already in your courses.
::So that's keep up the good work. That's something that you're already doing, and also many of you record lectures already. So these these are things that.
::You're already doing, but you're just not thinking about necessarily in terms of how much they're enhancing your students.
::Success ultimately another way is those discussion boards.
::And again, and you may already be doing discussion boards, but maybe think about breaking them into smaller discussion boards. Think about setting up discussion boards where the students lead some discussion.
::Where instead of you giving the prompt.
::A student is assigned to come up with the prompt for that week to discuss. That way you have shared the teaching. You've shared the load, and you've again humanized that student. So now when those other students are responding to that prompt, they're not responding to the teacher or to a faceless student. They're responding to somebody they know is also in their.
::Right, and if needed, and not just if needed, but strongly encouraged, go in there with some of those questioning strategies that we've talked about in a previous episode to help guide some of that conversation.
::Study groups and collaborative group work.
::That can be like we talked about with the small group discussions, it can be in the collaborative group document study notes that we discussed earlier. There are a lot of ways that.
::You can do that.
::Sequence learning activities that will guide observational development over time.
::Guide them through this. This is not a skill that you should expect students to come with to your class.
::You will have to sequence them in a way that starts at beginner and builds up their skill over time in in the semester.
::So by incorporating social learning theory principles, asynchronous courses can enhance motivation, engagement, connection and ultimately student success outcomes. Even digital spaces can mimic real life social learning. When intentionally designed, instructors play an important role in cultivating these productive learning.
::Ladies online.
::Think about your design. Be really intentional with how you're bringing people together in your asynchronous online course. And remember that you make.
::A huge difference in those success outcomes for your students. Thanks so much for joining us this week on the Pedagogy toolkit. Don't forget to subscribe.
