Albert Bandura Social Learning Theory

As an early childhood educator, this author believes that social learning theory is a sound theory in early childhood education. Social learning theory was proposed by Albert Bandura in 1977 (Cherry, n.d). Bandura believed that children are able to learn new behaviors by observing others (Cherry, n.d. para. 3). Children are very observant and fast learners. Adults might not notice that children observe everything adults do until they see the child performing the learned behavior. Children learn positive and negative behaviors. The social learning theory is a perspective that most educators and parents can easily agree with. Social skills are very important in order to have a positive and safe classroom setting and to help students in their future success. When children first enroll in school, most children have little experience interacting with their peers. Children learn from parents, teachers, and their young peers.
This educator includes activities in her lesson plan purposely for social learning. Children are presented with activities that require working together to complete a task, for example, using manipulatives to build or create something. Another area of focus to establish social skills is in the dramatic area. A lot of interaction and pretend plays occurs in the dramatic area. Children pretend play the roles of their parents. As Winter and Hollingsworth (2013) state, "practices that support those pretend play focused on setting pretend play scenarios and helping children play in those scenarios" (p. 1758). This author agrees with her statement. At Head Start, our first main goal is to encourage and model positive social skills. In the dramatic area, teachers spend time interacting and socializing with the children. This is a great opportunity to teach children how to interact and expand their pretend