Rachel Sarnoff
M.S. Ed. Candidate, May 2016 | The University of Pennsylvania
B.A. June, 2012 | Dartmouth College
In the Classroom
Factor 2: Vicarious Experience
From a very young age, we learn to do things by watching others do them successfully and imitating their actions. Self-efficacy theory, however, asserts that we not only learn the steps to success from others, but we also pick up on the possibility of success from watching others achieve it. In my classroom, it is therefore important to make public the successes of students in a way that other students can learn from. This term, while focusing on encouraging students to set behavioral goals and monitor their progress toward them, I also facilitated several conversations where students shared their achievement of their goals in a way that may be seen as providing a vicarious experience for their classmates. For example, the following conversation took place in the final closing circle of my two week instructional take over (Artifact 6).
Me: I want to hear about goals that you reached this week. Maybe something you’re proud of that you did this week. Something personal that you accomplished, be it with your behavior, your academics. Let’s think about it during a quick moment of silence. One goal I had this week was that I was going to get enough sleep each night to have energy each day to really be awake and be my best self. And there were a couple of days when I really accomplished that goal. So I’m proud of those days when I got enough sleep.
Student 1: My goal was paying attention in Language Arts, and I think I did that pretty well because I, well because when I shared the goal Monday, I said I wanted to know what to do, and I think I did know what to do!
Me: I love how [Student 1] pointed out how she knows that she accomplished her goal. She knew what to do!
Student 2: My goal was to wear my retainer to bed, and I know I accomplished it because my dad gave me a Hershey’s kiss in the morning!
Me: Awesome, see we all have things we need to do to take care of ourselves. And they are different for everybody, but we can celebrate those successes together.
Student 3: Paying attention in math, not putting my head down.
Me: Yes you were with us, how did that feel? How did you know you were accomplishing your goal?
Student 3: Well when I put my head down, I’m not listening to you. So if I know what to do at that time, that means I was keeping my head up.
Me: Does it make you feel more confident about fractions now that you’re keeping your head up?
Student 3: Yea!
It is my hope that, by hearing those who shared acknowledge their personal successes (with regards to a wide range of aspects of their lives), all participants in the circle had the opportunity to be inspired toward their own ability to succeed at their goals. Although I do not know the effect of this single conversation on any students’ sense of self-efficacy, I do think that students’ assessment of their own steps toward their goals have become increasingly more vivid and specific. Students who set vague goals like “be good and pay attention” evaluated their performance more specifically, saying “I feel one thing I did well is reading group because I am not distracted and I finished most of the things on my contract" (Artifact 7). By recognizing their specific achievements, I believe my students are demonstrating a strong sense of self-efficacy.
Artifact 7: Student Journal Response, 3/11/16
Artifact 6: Closing Circle Selected Transcript, 3/18/16
A second factor influencing self-efficacy that the research encouraged me to explore in the classroom is the effect of “vicarious experience.” That is, “observation of the successes and failures of others who are similar to one’s self. Watching someone successfully accomplish something you would like to attempt increases self-efficacy” (Bandura, 1994, p. 18). A classroom of similarly aged children provides a good context for enabling vicarious experiences, but to take full advantage of this factor requires an effort toward making visible student successes and promoting them in a way that is encouraging and inspiring, rather than competitive or diminishing to others. Next, I will discuss the ways that tried to expose my students to others’ successes in an effort to boost their own sense of self-efficacy.