%% ### #todo - [ ] ==Add to Anki — including sub-notes== - [ ] [[How Learning Happens]], part V - [ ] [[Foundations of Embodied Learning]]: ch 9, sociocultural basis of learning - [ ] [[Learning Theories Simplified]] - [ ] Sam Hammond [writes](https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzGwJvlBjTfqFFVchnzVplQnZqSM): "Social learning co-evolved with language as a faster and more adaptable stage of within-generation “post-training” on top of the “pre-training” provided by millions of years of evolution. Given the role of norms in coordinating human action, it’s as if we’re constantly undergoing a kind of endogenized Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback within the context of a repeated, multi-agent game." %% ### Situating this note [[To understanding learning, you need to consider of a wide variety of contexts and settings]]. In humans, as well as many other animal species, learning predominantly occurs in a [[Learning is fundamentally social|social context]] and is influenced by [[Culture is the learned behavior of a group of people that is socially transmitted over generations and shaped to fit the group's circumstances and goals|culture]] — the values, beliefs, practices, norms, and tools shared by a group of people. John Dewey (1938, p. 39) captured the significance of learning from and with others as follows: >In a word, we live from birth to death in a world of persons and things which in large measure is what it is because of what has been done and transmitted from previous human activities. It seems obvious, then, that we need to understand how sociocultural aspects influence learning in order to attain a comprehensive understanding of how people learn. In this note, I'm going to explore a variety of sociocultural learning mechanisms and strategies. There are companion notes on [[What are the biological mechanisms of learning and how do they work?|biological]] and [[What are the cognitive mechanisms of learning and how do they work?|cognitive]] mechanisms as well as a higher-level note on [[What are the mechanisms of learning and how do they work?|mechanisms of learning]]. ### How to interpret "sociocultural mechanisms of learning"? By "sociocultural learning," I mean learning that occurs through interaction with or observation of others or their products, i.e., learning that is influenced by other people.^[Hoppitt & Lala, 2013; Seel, 2012] This is in contrast with asocial or individual learning where the learner learns from experience interacting with their environment, without social interaction.^[Henrich, 2018; Seel, 2012] %%Should I further distinguish between social and cultural learning? E.g., Henrich (2018) writes the following: - ""**Cultural learning** is an important subclass of social learning, in which the individual seeks to acquire information from others, often by making inferences about their preferences, goals, beliefs, or strategies and/or by copying their actions or motor patterns." - "The **secret of our species’ success** resides not in the power of our individual minds, but in the **collective brains of our communities**. Our collective brains arise from the **synthesis of our cultural and social natures**—from the fact that we readily learn from others (are cultural) and can, with the right norms, live in large and widely interconnected groups (are social)." - Henrich defines "**culture**" as "the large body of practices, techniques, heuristics, tools, motivations, values, and beliefs that we all acquire while growing up, mostly by learning from other people."%% %%*What's the difference between "social" and "cultural?"* ChatGPT answer: - "Cultural" and "social" are two terms that often come up in sociology and anthropology. They relate to different aspects of human communities and behavior. - "Cultural" pertains to the beliefs, practices, arts, technologies, and other forms of knowledge and expression that define a particular group or society. This includes things like language, religion, traditions, customs, and norms. A "cultural" aspect of society might be something like a religious festival or an artistic style that's unique to a particular group of people. Culture is a complex system of shared symbols and meanings. It is also a lens through which we perceive and understand the world around us. - "Social," on the other hand, refers to the relationships and interactions between individuals and groups within a society. This includes social structures and institutions like family, education, politics, and economics. It also includes concepts like social class, social mobility, and social roles. A "social" aspect of society might be something like the role of family units, the impact of economic class on individuals' opportunities, or the influence of social norms on behavior. - In summary, while "cultural" refers to shared beliefs, values, and practices within a group, "social" pertains to the relationships, interactions, and structures that organize individuals and groups within a society. However, the two are closely interlinked and often influence each other. For example, cultural beliefs and values can shape social norms and structures, while social interactions and structures can influence cultural expressions and understandings.%% By "mechanism," I mean something like "a system of causally interacting parts that produce effects".^[Seth, 2021, p. 22] By "sociocultural mechanism," then, I mean something like the systems and processes that underlie the transmission of skills and knowledge between people. These are the gears in a complex machinery that direct how information is socially acquired and replicated. In line with Hoppitt and Lala (2013), I'll often use the term "observer" for the individual who learns and "demonstrator" for the individual that the observer learns from. %%Seel (2012), "Social learning in animals": "**Social learning may be direct or indirect**. Direct social learning refers to learning by observing others, whereas indirect social learning describes processes in which social partners aid the cognitive development of younger animals through the alteration of the physical environment."%% ### What are the different sociocultural mechanisms of learning? How do they work? %% ### #todo - [ ] Review [[The Secret of Our Success]], identify relevant information, organize it and related it to the mechanisms below. - [ ] How does "culture" fit in here? Am I narrowing down too much by focusing on social mechanisms of learning? - [ ] Discuss which of those mechanisms might be important in which kind of situation. - [ ] Discuss which of those mechanisms are relatively unique to humans as opposed to other animals. - [ ] Reflect how these mechanisms are different from [[What are the different types of learning?]] %% Scholars have proposed a **variety of classification schemes** for social learning mechanisms.^[Hoppitt & Lala, 2013] These schemes often use terms in an inconsistent and overlapping fashion; there isn't yet a full consensus over terminology.^[Hoppitt & Lala, 2013] The **classification scheme I use in the table below** is based on a monograph by Hoppitt and Lala (2013). They followed an earlier classification by Heyes (1994), which focused on observable criteria when defining social learning mechanisms. In addition, they included several indirect social learning mechanisms where the behavior of the demonstrator causes a temporary change in the observer's behavior which then leads to further asocial learning. Mechanism | Description ---- | ---- [[Stimulus enhancement]] | Learner becomes more responsive to a stimulus as a result of observing someone else's behavior [[Local enhancement]] | Learner becomes more responsive to a location as a result of observing someone else in that location [[Observational conditioning]] | Learner responds differently to a stimulus as a result of observing someone else respond to that stimulus [[Response facilitation]] | Learner more likely performs an action as a result of observing someone else perform that action [[Social facilitation]] | Learner behaves differently as a result of the mere presence of someone else [[Imitation]] | Learner replicates a novel behavior (production imitation) or applies a known behavior in a novel context (contextual imitation) as a result of observing someone else perform that behavior [[Observational R-S learning]] | Learner copies or avoids behaviors they observe someone else get rewarded or punished for, respectively [[Emulation]] | Learner copies the results of someone else's behavior but finds a different way of achieving them [[Opportunity providing]] | Someone else (such as a tutor) puts the learner into a situation that allows them to acquire new skills and knowledge [[(Inadvertent) coaching]] | Learner adjusts their behavior based on the reactions of someone else who observes them but isn't consciously trying to teach them The social learning mechanisms listed above relate to psychological **processes in the learner or observer**. An **additional perspective focuses on the demonstrator or teacher**. All of the mechanisms in the learner can happen in the presence or absence of "active" behavior on behalf of the teacher — behavior "whose function is to facilitate learning in others."^[Hoppitt & Lala, 2013, p. 100. Caro and Hauser (1992, p. 153) defined teaching in terms of observable criteria: "An individual actor A can be said to teach if it modifies its behavior only in the presence of a naïve observer, B, at some cost or at least without obtaining an immediate benefit for itself. A’s behavior thereby encourages or punishes B’s behavior, or provides B with experience, or sets an example for B. As a result, B acquires knowledge, or learns a skill earlier in life or more rapidly or efficiently than it might otherwise do so, or would not learn at all."] For example, a tennis coach might demonstrate a serve with the intention of having the learner imitate the behavior (an instance of teaching), or they might practice on their own (engaging in their usual behavior) while the learner happens to watch on the sideline (an instance of inadvertent social learning). Together, the two perspectives give a more comprehensive account of social transmission. Hoppitt and Lala grant that their classification suffers from several **limitations**, including overlapping and nonhierarchical categories (e.g., local vs. stimulus enhancement). In practice, it is often impossible to tell apart the different mechanisms given the available data. Even though the individual mechanisms are fairly well understood, it can be difficult to determine which ones are responsible for a particular case of social transmission. However, the authors suggest that there are often just **a few characteristics that distinguish instances of social transmission** most commonly presented in experimental studies of social learning mechanisms. These characteristics can be used to determine which mechanisms might be responsible for any particular instance of social transmission. They include: 1. **Context specificity**: Is the social learning effect context specific? If so, is it specific to a location (e.g., local enhancement), or to a particular class of stimuli (e.g., stimulus enhancement)? Examples that aren't necessarily context specific include production imitation or observational R-S learning. 2. **Sensitivity to the outcome of the demonstrator's actions**: For example, does the effect depend on whether the demonstrator is being rewarded for their actions? If so, it could be an instance of observational R-S learning; if not, it could be an instance of response facilitation, among others. 3. **Action specificity**: Is the social learning effect action specific? If so, it could e.g. be an instance of production imitation or observational R-S learning. If not, it could e.g. be an instance of local or stimulus enhancement. 4. **Novelty of the action or action sequence**: Is the action or action sequence already in the observer's repertoire, or is it a novel one? For example, response facilitation could be an instance of the former, and production imitation an instance of the latter. ### What are the rules that govern the use of sociocultural learning mechanisms? %% ### #todo - [ ] Maybe write a paragraph summarizing the primary conditions under which learners should favor social learning over asocial learning. - [[Social Learning]], 8.2.6: Enquist et al.’s (2007) findings are consistent with the hypothesis that social learning should be tried first when a behavior is either too costly or too complex to be invented by a single individual, a condition that applies to much of human culture. However, copying first may not be best in highly variable environments, where asocial learning is a more effective first recourse, or in cases where asocial learning is very low risk. - Number of people who you can learn from as well as their levels of adaptive information - Cost of acquiring adaptive information through asocial learning - Costs of acquiring adaptive information through social learning - Fidelity of social transmission - Rate of environmental change dictating the durability (or half-life) of information. When the payoffs of current strategies drop, this might be indicative of environmental change. In this situation, learners need to observe others or innovate themselves rather than exploit their known strategies. %% In other words, what are the **sociocultural learning strategies** that determine what, when, and who to copy?^[Henrich, 2018; Hoppitt & Lala, 2013] First, it's important to note that learning from others isn't alway beneficial for the learner. In other words, **sociocultural learning isn't inherently adaptive**. It doesn't inevitably increase [[Evolutionary fitness refers to how many offspring an individual has that grow up to reproduce themselves|fitness payoffs]].^[Hoppitt & Lala, 2013] Therefor, learners need to be **selective** about what, when, and who to copy. Different conditions favor different choices. This section aims to shed some light on the conditions in which sociocultural learning is adaptive for the individual learner. To bring the issue to life, I'll briefly discuss the **Social Learning Strategies Tournament** where Rendell and colleagues (2010) let 100 social learning strategies (or "agents") compete against each other in a changing environment. In every iteration of the game, agents selected one of three available moves: **Innovate**, which resulted in the agent learning one new behavior and its payoff on their own asocially; **Exploit**, whereby the agent chose one of the behaviors already in its repertoire to receive the payoff associated with it; and **Observe**, whereby the agent observed other agents who played Exploit and thus learned a new behavior and its payoff socially.^[There's a tradeoff here between exploration (Innovate or Observe) and exploitation.] An important finding was that social learning through Observe proved successful because the behaviors that could be learned this way had already been selected for their high payoffs. In other words, the agents who chose exploit made high-payoff behaviors available to other agents who observed them. The above tournament gives an idea of the basic strategies available to learners in the real world. But how should an individual decide whether to learn from others or not? There are three dimensions to consider:^[Henrich, 2018; Hoppitt & Lala, 2013] 1. **"When" strategies**: Under which circumstances should the individual learn from others rather than rely on their direct experience and instincts? 1. **Copy when established behavior is unproductive**: Basically, when the exploitation of current skills and knowledge doesn't lead to satisfactory outcomes, explore instead. Here, the criteria for copying are strictly based on the effectiveness of the learner's current behavior, i.e., restricted to success or failure of the current behavior. 2. **Copy when asocial learning is costly**: When information is costly to acquire asocially, it makes sense to copy instead. Costs include the energy expenditure during information acquisition, the risks of unreliable information, and the risks to the learner's survival, e.g., when learning how to deal with predators through direct experience. 3. **Copy when uncertain**: The more uncertain the learner is based on their personal experience, the more it makes sense to copy the behavior of others. 4. **Copy when prior information is outdated**: In circumstances where the learner's personal information becomes outdated, such as in changing environments, they should rely more on social information — as long as other individuals have more reliable information, of course. 5. **Copy when dissatisfied**: This strategy suggests that the learner should switch to copying others when they aren't satisfied with their current situation — even if their current behavior itself is productive, which distinguishes this strategy from "copy when established behavior is unproductive." Dissatisfaction can arise from a wider range of conditions. For example, the learner may be successful at finding food, but dissatisfied because they aren't finding as much food as they desire or having to work too hard for it. 2. **"Who" strategies**: Who possesses adaptive information that the individual should learn from? 1. **Frequency-dependent biases**: In a wide variety of circumstances, it's adaptive for the learner to adopt the behavior exhibited by most individuals in their environment. This is referred to as conformist transmission, or conformist bias. It leads to a disproportionate adoption of popular behaviors at the expense of rare behaviors in a group. However, this can hinder the spread of a new beneficial behavior that's initially rare. 2. **Success biases**: Learners can try to identify the most successful members of their group and copy their behavior. This can be done directly by observing the payoffs of other people's behavior, or indirectly using success cues such as health, wealth, or reproductive success. The problem with success cues is that it's often unclear which cues explain the majority of the success of the demonstrators, so it makes sense to sample several of the most successful individuals and use a wide range of cues to figure out whom to learn from. 1. A "copy-successful-individuals strategy" can lead to **prestige hierarchies**, where individuals pay deference to successful individuals in exchange for preferential access and assistance in learning. In such situations, the learner can observe whom others attend to and copy, and use such "prestige cues" to guide their own social learning. 4. **Kin and age biases**: 1. There's a lot of evidence that individuals often **copy kin**. This may simply reflect the fact that learners naturally spend more time with their kin and thus have more opportunities to learn from them. However, there are also some other explanations for this. The first one is based on **self-similarity**: The learner is more likely to be similar to and live in a similar environment as their kin, meaning that the skills and knowledge possessed by their kin is more useful to the learner. The second explanation is about **altruism**: The learner's kin may have less of an incentive to deceive the learner and more to gain by providing accurate information to them because of their genetic relatedness — in line with [[Hamilton's Rule]]. 2. **Age** is another important social learning cue. For example, children tend to learn from other children who are slightly older than themselves. This is a useful way of [[Scaffolding refers to tailored support for learners from more skilled and knowledgeable others which improves their task performance and learning|scaffolding]] their learning and staying in their [[Effective learning happens in the learner's zone of proximal development|zone of proximal development]]. In contrast, these children would likely be too inexperienced to directly learn from the most successful individuals in their groups. 3. **"What" strategies**: What information should the learner copy? 1. **Content biases**: This refers to the tendency of individuals to preferentially learn or adopt certain information or behaviors based on their content. In other words, some ideas, skills, or behaviors may be more readily learned or adopted because they are inherently more appealing, useful, or meaningful — likely because these have been important in our species' evolutionary history. An example is the human preference for foods that are high in sugar, fat, and salt, or the tendency to gossip. In natural settings, the above rules tend to **operate simultaneously**. It is their interaction that leads to effective decision-making about learning.^[Hoppitt & Lala, 2013] Most likely, these rules **operate instinctively** (i.e., automatically and unconsciously) on the level of the learner's psychology.^[Henrich, 2018] Also, how heavily we weigh the different rules on a meta level may be subject to learning — both from our direct experience and from observing others.^[Henrich, 2018] %% ### Literature - [ ] [[How People Learn II]] - [[Culture coordinates the biological systems involved in learning and is the broader context in which people engage in experiences that enable them to learn]] - [[Culture is the learned behavior of a group of people that is socially transmitted over generations and shaped to fit the group's circumstances and goals]] - [[Learning occurs within a dynamic system encompassing the changing contexts and people that surround an individual throughout life]] - [[Learning happens through action and experience in the world]] - [[Natural selection shapes a "perceive-decide-act" (PDA) loop, in which our experiences guide actions that enhance fitness]] - Human development, from birth throughout life, takes place through **processes of progressively more complex reciprocal interactions between the human individual** (an active, biopsychological organism) and that **individual’s immediate physical and social environments**. Through these dynamic interactions, culture influences even the biological aspects of learning. - [ ] Seel: - [ ] Anthropology of Learning and Cognition (Page 255–261) - [ ] The four subfields are: - [ ] (1) **systemic learning theory** with a focus on learning and information; - [ ] (2) **cultural epidemiology theory** attempting an evolutionary approach to culture inspired by natural sciences; - [ ] (3) **situated learning theory** with an inherent critique of cognitive theory; and - [ ] Lave and Wenger - [ ] (4) **cognitive anthropology** and cultural models, which explicitly explores the relation between mental models, learning, and agency in peoples’ everyday lives. - [ ] [Cultural Learning](https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-1-4419-1428-6_778) = cultural transmission - [ ] **Culture can be succinctly described as a process of information transfer within a population that occurs without the use of genetic material.** Culture can take many forms such as language, signals, or artifactual materials. Such information exchange occurs during the lifetime of individuals in a population and can greatly enhance the behavior of such species. Because these exchanges occur during an individual’s lifetime, cultural learning can be considered a subset of lifetime learning. - [ ] **Cultural learning describes the process of information transfer between individuals in a population through nongenetic means. Typically this is achieved through communication or the creation of artifacts available to all members of a population for the purposes of cultural transmission.** - [ ] Cultural transmission is the transmission of information resulting from social interactions across and within generations. As such, it is distinct from genetic evolution although, as described further, it can interact with the evolutionary process. - [ ] Transmission can occur in a number of ways, according to the social interactions in question. Vertical transmission describes the transfer of information from a parent generation to the next, such as occurs between parents and offspring. Horizontal transmission is the transfer of information within a single generation, as occurs when peers acquire behavior through imitation or learning. Finally, oblique or diagonal cultural transmission describes the process where a parent generation transmits information to both its peers and the next generation. - [ ] [Social Learning](https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-1-4419-1428-6_374) - [ ] Social learning is the synthesis of cognitive psychology and behaviorism, emphasizing the role of personal cognitive capability and the environment. On the one hand, neither classical nor operant conditioning of behaviorism explains the unreinforced behaviors. On the other hand, cognitive theories mostly ignore the role of environment. As a theory of interwoven, social learning assumes that one can learn by observing the behaviors of the other under certain environmental conditions; this process is often called vicarious learning. - [ ] Culture of Learning - [ ] Culture of learning then refers to the social conditions under which learning takes place. While in broader terms culture of learning denotes the attitudes of people from different culture toward learning, in a narrower sense it denotes the physical and psychological conditions in a school environment efficient in leveraging learning through reinforcing the value of learning. - [ ] Within the concept of culture of learning, learning is considered as a competitive process “through which cultural resources are distributed within specific local groups of learners and more broadly throughout a society” (Kumpulainen and Renshaw 2007, p. 111). Thus learning is not seen simply as a technical matter of effectiveness and efficiency but it is always a normative and ethical endeavor. - [ ] Social cognitive learning - [ ] Social cognitive learning occurs when an individual learns from other members of the group by observing and imitating their behavior. In order to imitate another person an individual has to establish a correspondence between this person’s behavior and that of his or her own, and this requires a certain level of cognitive development. - [ ] According to social learning theorists, learning, particularly in the area of social behavior, cannot be satisfactorily explained by the concept of social reinforcement of new forms of behavior, because it does not explain how these new forms of behavior appear in the child’s behavioral repertoire for the first time. These theorists postulate that certain forms of behavior, such as imitation, are self- reinforced, and therefore children can learn directly from observing other people’s behavior. - [ ] Social construction of learning - [ ] Researchers who emphasize a social construction of learning present learning as a social and cultural process that occurs in the context of human relationships and activity and not just “in the heads” of individual learners. In this “social” formulation of learning, the ▶sociocultural context is not merely the location of learning. The sociocultural context affects how people learn (through participation in ▶cultural activities) and what is learned (▶social practices), and is itself part of what is learned. Crucially, psychological (learn- ing) processes are not independent of the sociocultural context; indeed, they are constituted by the context of which they are a part - [ ] Social learning in animals - [ ] Many species live in social groups, which offers the possibility to learn from the behavior of others. Examples of social influences on the adaptive modification of behavior are widespread and diverse, ranging from food selection and predator avoidance to learning of songs, routes, and motor skills. It can also lead to synchrony in the performance of established behavior and the transmission of new behavior patterns through- out a group. These affects are mostly (though not necessarily and not always) beneficial to the observer, either immediately or long term, and are therefore assumed to outweigh potential costs in terms of vigilance, attention, memory, or special learning mechanisms. - [ ] The term social learning usually refers to learning that is influenced by observation of, or interaction with, another animal or its products. Many people use “individual learning” as a complementary term, to refer to learning that does not involve social interaction or any information that is provided by others. It would, however, be less confusing to use the term “asocial learning,” because in all cases it is ultimately individuals who learn. - [ ] Social learning may be direct or indirect. Direct social learning refers to learning by observing others, whereas indirect social learning describes processes in which social partners aid the cognitive development of younger animals through the alteration of the physical environment. - [ ] It has been suggested that social learning may fill an important niche between species-typical, genetically predisposed behavior and individual learning. Learning by observing others may provide more flexibility than is possible with species-typical behavior, but it may also shortcut the many iterations of trial and error necessary for most individual learn- ing, and move directly to solutions previously found by others. - [ ] Theory of mind in animals - [ ] Premack and Woodruff (1978) defined possessing a theory of mind as the ability to attribute mental states to oneself and others. Three main categories of mental states have been distinguished: perceptual, epistemic, and volitional. Perceptual mental states include things like seeing and attending. Epistemic states include things like thoughts, knowledge, and beliefs. Volitional states include intentions, goals, and desires. - [ ] [Imitation: Definitions, Evidence, and Mechanisms](https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-1-4419-1428-6_596) - [ ] Imitation involves the copying of an otherwise improbable response demonstrated by another individual that cannot be attributed to (a) contagion (e.g., flocking, mobbing, yawning, laughing), (b) social facilitation (the mere presence of another), (c) local or stimulus enhancement (attention drawn to a place or object by the sight of a conspecific at that place or interacting with that object), or (d) emulation, learned affordances, or object movement reenactment (learning how the environment works). - [ ] Social learning, the ability of animals to learn from observing the behavior of others, would appear to have adaptive value because it reduces the likelihood of experiencing the negative consequences of trial and error learning. There are various kinds of social learning, the most theoretically interesting of which is imitation. - [ ] [Imitative Learning in Humans and Animals](https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-1-4419-1428-6_270) - [ ] Imitative learning occurs when an individual acquires a novel action as a result of watching another individual produce it. It can be distinguished from other, lower-level social learning mechanisms such as local enhancement, stimulus enhancement, and contagion (see Imitation: Definition, Evidence, and Mechanisms). Most critically within this context, it can also be distinguished from emulation in which an individual learns about the affordances and/or causal properties of the objects involved in a demonstration rather than the particular actions used by the model. - [ ] https://kids.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frym.2020.00095 - [ ] https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-anthro-102215-100009 - [ ] [[International Handbook of the Learning Sciences]] - [ ] [[Apprenticeship learning is based on legitimate peripheral participation in communities of practice]] - [ ] [[Apprenticeship learning merges the learning context and the application context]] - [ ] [[Cognitive apprenticeship is an update of traditional apprenticeship to make it applicable to modern society and cognitive subjects like reading or writing]] - [ ] [[Communities of practice form the social and epistemic context in which apprenticeship learning takes place]] - [ ] [[Sociocultural theories of learning focus on the participation of learners in the societal practices within a particular context]] - [ ] [[The Routledge International Handbook of Learning]] - [ ] [[All knowledge and learning is situated]] - [ ] [[Illeris suggests that learning includes three dimensions – cognitive, emotional, and social]] - [ ] [[Learning is fundamentally social]] - [ ] [[Learning mediates between pre-existing social structures and human agency that reproduces or changes these structures]] - [ ] [[Learning takes place in both formal and informal activities and environments]] - [ ] [[Socialization is the process by which the cultural values, beliefs, knowledge and skills necessary for the performance of social roles are inculcated and replicated in successive generations]] - [ ] [[Sociocultural theories of learning focus on the participation of learners in the societal practices within a particular context]] - [ ] [[There is cross-cultural variation in the learning process]] - [ ] [[Vygotskian theories of learning focus on how culture and social interaction with significant people influence the learner]] - [ ] [[The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences]] - [ ] Chapter 2: sociocultural theory, systemic view - [ ] Chapter 3: scaffolding - [ ] Chapter 4: project-based learning - [ ] Chapter 8: cognitive apprenticeship - [ ] [[Cognitive apprenticeship focuses on four dimensions that constitute any learning environment; content, method, sequence, and sociology]] - [ ] [[Cognitive apprenticeship is an update of traditional apprenticeship to make it applicable to modern society and cognitive subjects like reading or writing]] - [ ] [[Collaborative social interaction in a situated experience to construct shared understanding leads to strong learning]] - [ ] [[Communities of learners create a culture of learning where individual learners are engaged in a collective effort of understanding]] - [ ] [[Effective learning happens in the learner's zone of proximal development]] - [ ] [[Learning benefits from collaboration and argumentation with others]] - [ ] [[Scaffolding refers to tailored support for learners from more skilled and knowledgeable others which improves their task performance and learning]] - [ ] [[Situated learning involves solving challenging problems and working with ideas in real-world contexts, which provides learners with authentic experiences]] - [ ] [[The situated cognition perspective holds that cognition is embodied, embedded, and extended]] ### Notes - [[Learning happens through action and experience in the world]] - [[Humans have evolved to be highly socially interdependent]] - [[Observational learning consists of observing and modeling another individual's behavior, attitudes, or emotional expressions]] - [[Sociocultural theories of learning focus on the participation of learners in the societal practices within a particular context]] - [[Socialization is the process by which the cultural values, beliefs, knowledge and skills necessary for the performance of social roles are inculcated and replicated in successive generations]] - [[Learning mediates between pre-existing social structures and human agency that reproduces or changes these structures]] - [[Learning is fundamentally social]] - [[All knowledge and learning is situated]] - [[To understanding learning, you need to consider of a wide variety of contexts and settings]] - [[Understanding learning as a developmental process requires many levels of analysis]] - **Social attention sharing**: In humans, attention and learning depend on social signals. We absorb what others transmit to us receptively, without personally verifying it. This allows for the rapid expansion of human societies, but makes us vulnerable to the spread of fake news.^[Dehaene, 2021] - [[Culture coordinates the biological systems involved in learning and is the broader context in which people engage in experiences that enable them to learn]] - [[Foundations of Embodied Learning]], chapter 5, distinguishes between three different types of processing: 1 = automatic and unconscious, 2 = explicit rule-based behavior, 3 = sociocultural interaction - Maybe skim the type 3 processing section of this chapter. - [[There is cross-cultural variation in the learning process]] - [[Learning takes place in both formal and informal activities and environments]] - [[Cognitive apprenticeship focuses on four dimensions that constitute any learning environment; content, method, sequence, and sociology]] %% --- Topics: - [[Learning (Index)]] Related notes: - [[What are the mechanisms of learning and how do they work?]] - [[What are the biological mechanisms of learning and how do they work?]] - [[What are the cognitive mechanisms of learning and how do they work?]]