Last week in my Inquiries to Teaching class I had to do a report on a theorist and was assigned to Albert Bandura. I had always heard about him from my other education classes, but i never knew exactly what he was known for. He was actually considered the “father” of the cognitivist movement. When he researched he specialized in the social-cognitive theory and self efficacy. He was also responsible for the bobo doll studies. I found these studies very interesting when i was reading about them. Basically what took place was, Bandura had one of his students beat up and yell at a bobo doll. Then the young students watched a tape of this and were then directed to a room which had bobo dolls. The students acted exactly as the lady in the video had and they beat up the doll. This is what Bandura called observational learning or modeling and it might not seem all that amazing to the average person however it was an amazing accomplishment for the cognitivists. This was all very interesting to me and i plan on using it when i become a teacher to try and have my students model the right behavior in the classroom and for different projects.

-Melissa Ninni