Social Cognitivism Case Study

1. The strategies that Mr. Corbet uses to teach his students appropriate school behavior are most consistent with which two theories/theorists that we have learned about so far this semester? Justify your response.

I think he used may strategies learned during the semester. I saw tints of constructivism in how he arranged the students in the classroom. It seems like he wanted the students to participate in discovery learning. The ones associatated with the behavior was definitely behaviorism when he applied a positive reinforcer and also a negative reinforcer. This happened when told the table how they acted and that they were ready to go, so he allowed them to go. The ones that did not go were those that received the negative reinforcement. Also when he ignored the bad behavior and showed how positive reinforcement can be negative reinforcement for others. I like how he uses reinforcement rather than punishments. He also demonstrated reciprocal causation with the reinforcements he gave. Students learned from watching the other students in the class.

2. Describe one incident in the case study that represents vicarious reinforcement. Explain your reasoning.

I think it was when the teacher went to the swings and the girl in the yellow dress had pushed someone. The girl who had watched the whole thing was going to point to the girl she had seen to it but she remembered when Mr. Corbet had shown another student not to point. She in turn closed her finger and nodded because she knew that it was not nice to point.

3. Describe one incident in the case study that represents vicarious punishment. Explain your reasoning.

I would say when he blows the whistle when a student is not doing something correct. It becomes vicarious punishment when all the rest of the students hear the whistle and think they have done something wrong. Perhaps they were doing something incorrect or maybe not, but they still feel punished by having the whistle blow only because they know someone gets punished when the whistle blows.

4. Do you think Mindy has low or high self-efficacy with regard to appropriate kindergarten behavior? Justify your response with examples from the case.

I think she has a low self-efficacy with many things pertaining to kindergarten. She demonstrates this when it tells us how she squirms in her seat when waiting for her color to be called. She is nervous how Mr. Corbet might react to the way she joins the line with the other students. She also isn't sure what recess is, but by the way the other students are acting she thinks it must be good. Only by seeing how the other students reactions did she understand it for herself. She has no idea what it means to raise a hand to ask a question. She questions what a boy is trying to touch in the air when he is raising his hand. Mindy really knows very little and without seeing the rest of the class she would have a hard time understanding what to do.