AGUILAR, Alyssa Bianca B.

G201800102
PED701: Pedagogical Theories and Practices

Social Learning Theory vs. Social Constructivism Theory vs. Socio-cultural Learning
Theory

While all these three theories of learning put emphasis on the role played by social interaction to
behavioural development of individuals, they differ on how learning is transmitted.

Social learning theory highlight the fact that the people can learn from observing the experiences
of others. This clearly explains how children and adults often exhibit learning for things with
which they have no direct experience. Even if you have never swung a badminton racket in your
life, you would probably know what to do if someone handed you a racket and told you to play
badminton with him. This is because you have seen others perform this action either in person or
on television.

However, observational learning does not even necessarily require watching another person
engage in an activity. Hearing verbal instructions, such as listening to a podcast, can lead to
learning. We can also learn by reading, hearing, or watching the actions of characters in books
and films. It is this type of observational learning that has become a lightning rod for controversy
as parents and psychologists debate the impact that entertainment media has on kids. Many
worry that kids can learn bad behaviors such as aggression from violent video games, movies,
television programs, and online videos. (Cherry, 2017)

Seeing or hearing about the consequence of other people’s action may also produce learning. A
pupil who has heard a playmate being sent to the Prefect of Discipline from picking flowers will
not do the same thing. On the other hand, another student seeing a classmate pick up pieces of
candy wrapper littered inside the classroom and receiving an incentive for it may later do so.

In social constructivism, Vygotsky teaches that all knowledge develops as a result of social
interaction and language use, and is therefore a shared, rather than an individual, experience. The
process of learning requires that the learner actively participate in creative activities and self-
organization. Collaboration with others while participating in an activity provides opportunity for
learners to interact and co-construct new ideas. Thus, learning is more than the assimilation of
new knowledge by learners; it was the process by which learners were integrated into a
knowledge community.

In order to apply social constructivism theories in the education arena, teachers and school
leaders need to shift and reshape their perspectives. Both must move from being “people who
teach” to being “facilitators of learning.”

Social constructivism is related to but distinct from sociocultural theory (Vygotsky, 1978). While
both theories give importance to the contextual nature of learning and the construction of
knowledge, sociocultural theory places emphasis on the mediating role of historically situated
cultural tools and artefacts. In other words, it is not the social context alone which produces new
understandings, but also the cultural tools and artefacts within it that produce and shape new
knowledge (Cole and Wetsch, 1996).
For example, memory in young children is limited by biological factors. However, culture
determines the type of memory strategy we develop. Like in our culture, we learn note-taking to
aid memory, but in pre-literate societies, other strategies must be developed, such as tying knots
in a string to remember, or carrying pebbles, or repetition of the names of ancestors until large
numbers can be repeated.

Vygotsky refers to tools of intellectual adaptation - these allow children to use the basic mental
functions more effectively/adaptively, and these are culturally determined (e.g., memory
mnemonics, mind maps).

Vygotsky, therefore, sees cognitive functions, even those carried out alone, as affected by the
beliefs, values, and tools of intellectual adaptation of the culture in which a person develops and
therefore socio-culturally determined. The tools of intellectual adaptation, therefore, vary from
culture to culture - as in the memory example.