Social Learning Theory at Work

    I learned just as much from teaching as I did from watching all of the other groups teach. I had the pleasure of being in the last group so I was able to watch the mistakes of those before me and then learn from them to become a better teacher. I was given time to work on learning student names, not saying "you guys," and making sure everything in my lesson was engaging (not fun) and purposeful.
    Humans are social creatures and through the first few years of our life as we develop we learn mostly from social interactions. Modeling and cooperation are used in lessons for this exact reason- students learn through social stimulus. By watching other teacher candidates teach I was able to learn and study their models and then incorporate behaviors and positive teaching strategies I learned.
    Throughout this process I watched and learned about Web Quests, the importance of a base vocabulary understanding, group work, class management, time management, the importance of rubrics, the double edged sword that is videos, how motivating technology is, and how added responsibility produces more and better work from students.
    As teachers we add advanced as well. Throughout the course of fieldwork we all became better at not saying "you guys," responding to correct or wrong answers, presenting without reading from the board, speaking clearly and not yelling to get attention, signals for attention, assessing, and creating more engaging and interactive lessons. We developed insights into teaching a whole class rather than groups such as the necessity for guided notes and questions rather than non-structured notes. Leading a whole class also taught us to use choral responding or group answers over picking individual students to ensure that every student was engaging and responding to each question.
     Groups one, two, and three each built on each other content wise and in perfecting skills that were commented on. Each group got better time management control and learned new ways to keep the students on task. Throughout all of the similarities, however, each group planned and executed very different lessons and activities. I was glad to see work, ideas, and lessons from peers that think differently than I do so that I can push myself to move outside of my comfort zone as well to better accommodate all of the learners in my future classroom.
    In a last note, the chance to sit back ad observe a lesson instead of always being in it was an interesting and worthwhile experience. Just observing a lesson allowed me to put myself in the students shoes and find where confusions, boredom, excitement, engagement, and learning could occur. Being in an observing position is rewarding because it gives the teacher candidates a chance to think more critically about lesson components, implementations, and engagement. As stated in the beginning, it is easy to say I learned just as much from observing my colleagues in this class as I did from actually teaching.