Social Learning Theory

             I see evidence of the Social Learning theory every single day in the middle school classroom that I teach. Social learning theory states that students begin to imitate behaviors or  characteristics that students witness in the social setting. For example, if there is a student that is considered "popular" or "cool", and this specific student is obedient, does all of his/her classwork, and follows classroom rules, students that want to be like this student will begin to imitate this behavior in the classroom. As an educator I see this as an advantage, because as soon as students have built this rapport with their teacher, it sets the tone for other students to also, follow those same patterns of behaviors.

           This is especially interesting when it comes to the video examples that were presented in this online class module. For example, the Mean Girls and math example, one specific girl, is pretending that she is terrible at math, because the stereotype is that "pretty" girls aren't good at math, and that only geeks join the math club, although this is not a recent movie, the roles that our students conform to in the school social setting, are especially true just like in the Mean Girls clip. Another example of Social Learning, is the Easy A image transformation, she pretended to have sexual relationships with boys, and suddenly everyone thought she was promiscuous, to conform to the role that she was unable to change, but people were thinking of her, she began dressing in a very provocative way.