We are social creatures by nature. We like to interact, share ideas and observe others. In fact, unless you’re a Himalayan yogi, long-term social isolation can have negative mental impacts.
It’s no surprise that social interaction plays a role in learning. Psychologist Albert Bandura’s social learning theory states that people learn behavior from their environment through observation, imitation and modeling. You might think that e-learning is counterintuitive to this theory because it is presented to the individual rather than a group of learners. However, technology allows us to provide plenty of opportunities to implement a social learning strategy in e-learning.
Let’s look at some of the key principles of Bandura’s social learning theory and how they can be applied in an e-learning context.