Cognitive Learning Theory

Paul Crawford
CRN 3100 Learning Theory Essay

Introduction

Social cognitive learning is social and context bound, that definitely has 

physical representations that are replicated, monkey see monkey do. Social

environmental learning in groups through repetition and shared knowledge.

Let's face the facts. A major part of learning in today’s total environment has

never been more socially driven than it currently is now. Is the student of 

today  completely reliant on their own for direction and acknowledgement? 

"Learning would be exceedingly laborious, not to mention hazardous, if people 

had to rely solely on the effects of their own actions to inform them what to do.

Fortunately, most human behavior is learned by modelling: from observing 

others, one forms an idea of how new behaviors are performed, and on later 

occasions this coded information serves as a guide for action" Albert 

Bandura, Social Learning Theory, 1977.

In many learning situations we are put into groups of varying sizes regardless 

of educational acumen. When we embark into the intimidating world of being 

"The Student", some of our biggest fears most likely will be, will I be able to

understand the delivery of the curriculum and will I be able to absorb and

remember the curriculum. Since we were children we have been put into 

groups for the purposes of team building, morale, friendship and learning 

assistance. I remember teachers uttering certain phrases such as, help each 

other out, work together, when you’re done help out the students in your 

group. The teacher would come around to check the progress and give 

guidance accordingly. Social Cognitive Theory is alive and well here.

My reasoning for this topic

As well delve deeper into the personality types that make up our ever evolving existence, social networking genres, booking anything online, using your smart phone, even paying for parking at those automated machines, all of these actions requires a certain amount of training. With varying degrees each training module for these particular services will have a social training piece that will just happen. People in general like to show each other the how to of life. We get a feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment when we can show our friends how to do something. Raising our children is a constant assault of observing, mentoring and modelling. How many times has the eldest child of a household been scolded for not setting a good example? Has the child been shown all of the parameters of what it is the parent is upset about? How can a child help out his siblings if they haven't been properly shown themselves? As young adults go through life, they huddle around in groups for many reasons such as gossip, watching the latest you tube video, security, hey look at my new gadget so I can show you how it works, look at me, hey how did you do that? Socially we need each other more than we think. We connect to each other through mentoring, mimicking and admiration. Choosing Social Cognitive Learning Theory was easy due to the day to day tasks that a Chef Instructor must deliver. I enjoy showing students how to cook a variety of items as they go through their learning experiences. Chefs use a variety of delivery systems, video demos, hands on live demos with description and of course each student must have the On Cooking text with them. This text book is full of information from pictures to web addresses for more in depth information. An interesting learning technique is having the student perform the demo with the Chefs assistance. Quite often what happens is a student will be working on turning vegetables, which is cutting certain vegetables such as carrots, zucchini and potatoes into barrel shapes, essentially the vegetable must have seven sides as a grading tool. I will line up the examples the student has done and critique each one. The majority of them fail on the first few times, I will show them again and explain how to do it properly. It is not easy to learn. A Chef will demonstrate how to turn a variety of vegetables and then watch the students as they attempt to master the art of turning. This is a very visually demanding exercise and is tough on the hands, they will cramp from time to time. It is these challenges that is exciting for me to educate the future Chefs of our society.

From the Learners Perspective

When adults are put into learning situations do they rely on the teacher for all information both theoretical and practical, for the most part they do. When it comes time for them to get the job done they will naturally gravitate to each other for advice on how to deal with a problem that they are finding difficult. Is self-efficacy the outcome of expectancy and is reinforcement necessary for both learning and performance? Reinforcement is a great tool as long as it isn't over done. With the adult learner, education can be a daunting task, is the education something that they wanted to do? Or is it a mandatory lesson in order for them to gain knowledge for job promotions or for self-realization. Each scenario presents some interesting challenges that the adult student will have to make for themselves. The age of the adult student can be another factor for expected instruction. If a student has just graduated from high school they might already be well versed in social cognitive theory and don't even realise it. They naturally seek each other out for the "how did you do that" situations, rather than going to the teacher for every single thing. Also depending on the psychology of the students they will either get the assistance they need or they won't. At that point the student has to go to the teacher and ask for a demo or just give and explanation on how to get it done. The more senior student has entered a realm that can be full of memory flashbacks.....”oh how the times they are a changing”...they might be thinking. Does a senior student seek knowledge the same way a younger student would...possibly!

From the Educators Perspective

The educator must realise these variables of teaching and be able to teach all students with slightly different approaches. In my experiences working as a Chef, teaching people of all ages and ethnicities, these theories definitely apply. Social Cognitive Theories in my experiences have never been more prevalent. Let's take the new student who has been in Canada for a short time and has a basic grasp of the English language. These students will gravitate to each other that are in the same situations. Mimicking each other and also speaking in a familiar language will help these students. Assistance from the Chef, slower orator without big words, combined with live demonstrations and modelling of how to prepare menu items.

Here's how it has looked in my classes

I had to demonstrate to a class the steps required to butcher an entire lamb. To give these students a diagram and a boning knife and wish them good luck would not be the way to get them to learn the process of deboning the animal. We would go through the steps of knife sharpening, gloves on, and a step by step visual of how to break it down. Upon finishing the demo we would talk about the primary and secondary cuts of meat that will be on one of their tests (motivation for absorbing information). From a students point of view, the task of butchery isn't everyone’s cup of tea. When they understand what it is they are working on, the student soon learns through demos and working side by side with each other, that it isn't difficult at all. As we go through our professional careers we work with both confident and less confident people. "Self-esteem and self-efficacy are often thought of as synonymous, however they vary greatly. Self-efficacy differs from self-esteem in that it's a judgement of specific capabilities rather than a general feeling of self-worth" (Beck, 2008). For example, I was in charge of making sure that we always had an Ice Sculpture for our Sunday brunches. Generally it would require 2-3 hours of my time, a lot of concentration and attention to detail. After a year or so I began to train a cook that had a ton of confidence with himself and his abilities, but had never carved ice. I told him that I was going to teach him the art of ice carving. He was excited and nervous at the same time. We would talk about the carving in it's conceptual form first, then lightly etch it onto the slightly thawed ice, and proceed from there. We would work together for weeks until he felt more confident with himself. As his self-efficacy improved so did his self esteem with this particular task. The compliments he would receive from the clients, especially the children, was definitely worth the time spent with him.

An employee may have low self-efficacy for training a new employee, but this will not cause any ill feelings of perceived self-worth. Even though the two concepts are different, they are connected. The philosophy behind Bandura’s Triadic Reciprocal Determinism is that all determinants of motivation are functionally dependent, interacting and influence one another (Bandura, 1997). Therefore, an individual who has high self-efficacy and is successful in most of the tasks he/she undertakes will most likely build a high self-esteem. Vice-versa, self-esteem could also influence self-efficacy. "It is true, however, that people tend to cultivate their capabilities in activities that give them a sense of self-worth. If empirical analysis are confined to activities in which people invest their sense of self-worth, they will inflate correlations between self-efficacy and self esteem, because the analysis ignore both domains of functioning in which people judge themselves in-efficacious but could not care less and those in which they feel highly efficacious but take no pride in performing the activity well because of its socially injurious consequences" (Bandura, 1997). My third example relates to this ideal. In the Hotel business we perform many Banquets for varying people and ethnicities. For revenue purposes we expanded our offering to the Jewish community. We Kosherized part of our kitchen in order to accommodate Barmitztvahs, Batmitzvahs and Weddings. The energy and learning curve with regards to all Kosher and Parve Kosher functions was daunting to say the least. I was working directly with several Rabbis in order to completely understand how these functions are put together as far as prep, assembly, service and clean-up was supposed to be performed. After several functions and some extremely long days performing many highly engaging events, the Chef and I decided that it would be a great idea to train another employee the fine art of Kosher food servicing. The team member that we chose wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea of 14 to 20 hour days. I took him aside and explained the massive amount of experience and knowledge he was going to get from learning the intricacies of Kosher food production. It was very interesting after we performed several functions together, the team member realised the full extent of my knowledge for getting these functions completed flawlessly. He once asked me if I was Jewish.....I said no I'm not but you must behave and act as if you are Jewish. Respecting the religious ideals is the predominant motivation behind the successful completion of Kosher cuisine. While the team member understood what I was telling him about all of the demands of this denomination, he himself was an Atheist and didn't have as much respect for the processes and found a lot of it to be tough to deal with. He performed well and was appreciated by the Rabbis that we worked with. In the beginning he thought it might be injurious for his career and that the experiences he was gaining wouldn't help him with his future career decisions, well it hasn't hurt my career I told him. An interesting thing has happened in the Restaurant Industry over the past few decades. Open kitchen designs are quite apparent now. Part of the activities that I embrace when I am teaching all students is the art of "quiet"..... This is something my 4 and 8 year old haven't grasped yet but when it comes to teaching adults how to work in an open concept, it can be quite an eye opener for them. Professional etiquette, common sense and a respect for the customer as well as each other must be observed. Mimicking the stealth that the Chef and his Sous Chefs would employ while working in these kitchens was very important. Watching how the waiters and experienced cooks inter connect with each other is a must for any future Chef to be successful.

Summary

To summarise the Culinary Arts Social Cognitive Learner, we must put ourselves into the clogs of young cooks and aspiring Chefs to be. Learning a trade such as Culinary Arts is a massive and intimidating career path to go down. The majority of cooks will never make it as Chefs. The time requirement, patients, skills and all around aptitude for cooking and keeping up with this ever evolving industry, can be overwhelming to a lot of young cooks. That being said with the proper amount of hands on QUALITY training that a cook gets at each of their jobs will define them as a cook or as a Chef, it's their goal and dream to become someone who will learn a craft that will take them as far as they want to go in their lives. To be Socially Cognitive is to be rooted in a view of human agency in which individuals are agents proactively engaged in their own development and can make things happen by their actions. People are self-organising, proactive, self-reflecting, self-regulating rather than as reactive organisms shaped by environmental forces or driven by impulses (behaviorism)

Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: W.H.

Freeman. Bandura, A. (1986). Social Foundations of Thought and Action.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Bandura, A. (1973). Aggression: A Social

Learning Analysis. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Bandura, A. (1977). Social Learning Theory. New York:

Beck, AT (2008) "The Evolution of the Cognitive Model of Depression and Its Neurobiological Correlates".