Social Cognitivism

Social Cognitivism is something that is easily used in theatre.  How we behave in theatre or in our day to day life is picked up intentionally or not and may end up being used in a performance.  So how can we use those behaviors that we observe to our benefit?
One thing that Ms. Brugger, the teacher I am observing, does to teach this to her class is she modeled for them how she wants the class to give feedback on someone's performance.  She did it herself to begin with, giving sandwich style feedback (something good, something they can improve on, and then something good).  She then explained the benefits of giving feedback this way, that it allows students to feel confident in their work and also gives them something to be working on as they continue to fix their performance.  She then had the students try it as the following students got up gave their performance.  Calling on students to give feedback, in the style that she modeled.  She would then ask the student who got the feedback how that feedback made them feel.  The students gave a positive response and it made them feel more confident in their performance.  I also observed that the students that followed went into their performance with more confidence because they knew that overall they would be able to feel good about the work that they did.  It created a vicarious reinforcement that if they give a good performance, they will feel better about the feedback they receive.  
The above example goes hand in hand with this article, which if you scroll down to "the intervention" section you can start to read how social cognitivism and theatre go hand in hand.  It states "we can learn by observing others and by receiving feedback from others."  Theatre is one of those subjects that is very opinionated and in the real world, you really can get a role or job based off of your looks and abilities.  So through social cognitivism, we can observe what is appropriate behavior and receive that necessary feedback to excel in our position.

Information Processing

Processing information is a very important skill that teachers need to understand in order to have students understand the material they are taught to be remembered as time goes on.  I have seen a lot of different examples from my teacher that I have observed this semester to help get students focused on the material and remember it for the long haul.

One example that my teacher does is the raising her hand above her head and counting down from 5-0 to gain the students attention.  This increases students awareness of their surroundings and helps them know that they are losing focus and need to regroup their thoughts.  Also the teacher has laid out that if they are still being disruptive after she gets to 0, they have the chance to lose participation points, adding a level of fear that is controllable for both the teacher and the student.  This link is a great reference to see how this simple tool of counting down can help get students focused.
Ms. Brugger also allows her students to work together in pairs or groups often to help go over material that they learn.  This way the students are practicing both maintenance and elaborative rehearsal by repeating to each the material over and over again while also connecting material to other outlets.
With theatre, we draw from many real world experiences to give us motivation, meaning, influences, ect.  So naturally in the classroom, the lessons tend to get connected to real world material for the students to connect to.  Ms. Brugger always tried to connect her lessons to something happening in the world today so the students can understand how powerful the material we are learning is and so they can start to make their own connections and encode in their brains how what they are learning can be applied to something.  With monologues, referring it to a job interview, and being able to talk comfortably in front of someone or a group of people.  The skills needed to do both are the same and can easily be transferred from one to another.
Wait time is something that can be awkwardly important.  We don't like these awkward pauses in our discussion, but it gives students time to think for themselves and digest the information.  Ms. Brugger even told me in her comments on my lesson that I taught for her class that I needed to give more time to allow students to think and respond, as well more time for them to quiet down to listen.  She explained to me the importance of making sure everyone is on the same page and that while everyone may appear fine on the outside, in their heads they are all processing the information differently and needed different amounts of time to think.  It's better to wait longer and let everyone process than to only allow half the class to understand it.

Behaviorism

It's hard in a theatre classroom to really implement the behaviorism theory, not that it's impossible though.  The theatre I am observing this semester, Ms. Brugger, uses this theory in her film studies class.  While most of the class is a lot of watching movies to understand the different types of film and such, she uses the Premack Principle to have the students work on the packets that she gives out on varying subjects (usually about the era they are studying) and then as a reward, the students get to pick out of a list of movies that fit with the lesson which one they want to watch in class.  If the students are getting off topic or talking during their study time and their packets aren't getting completed, she implements the Response Cost and takes away their choice of working as a partnership on the packets, or simply chooses the movie they get to watch, rather than allow them to choose.

The students responded quite well to this particular example.  It motivated students to get their packet done efficiently because they got to control how the class went as they did their work.  They got to pick what they wanted to see and who they worked with and understood that failure to do that resulted in the loss of those privileges.   There were some students who simply didn't care or tried, and Ms. Brugger took that into her judgement of these rewards and punishments.  She work talk to those students to make sure they were both on the same page and she would try and find something that would motivate those students to do the work and not ruin the experience for the rest of the class.  (I am not aware of any of those deals that she has made with those students, but they do seem to work harder for a different goal.)

I love this article because it talks about how giving students choices truly helps empower them and feel like they are getting the most out of their education.  This works hand it hand with what Ms. Brugger is doing because she is giving the students the choice to pick the movie they enjoy.  If they enjoy it, they are more likely to watch it and get more out of it.  If they end up not liking the movie, they learned more about what they don't like in movie choices because they picked it!  Giving students choice is the best learning strategy and behaviorism plays a role in that choice.