Let's hope the scaffold does not give way

Scaffold – this is one of those terms co-opted by the Education world for their particular purposes.  The term seems to be ubiquitous but the context has been hard to follow since it is used variously as a noun, verb, and adjective.

 

-        I provided a scaffold for the student.

-        I scaffolded the student on the exercise.

-        I provided a scaffolded exercise for the student.

If for no other reason than to solidify my own understanding and further my attempts to speak like a native, I undertook a slightly more detailed study of the word and its uses.  I will now report back in the hopes of helping others, or at least in hoping others will correct me and further my understanding.

As I defined earlier, scaffolding is the concept of an expert assisting a novice, or an apprentice.  It has a very rich literature going back to the 1930s, with Vygotsky and Bruner being two of the big names associated with academic research on the topic.  More than just assisting, scaffolding (per Bruner) is setting up the situation to make the child’s entry into a topic successful by providing additional support but pulling that support back over time as the child learns the skills to do the work him or herself.  The term scaffold then comes from the more industrial use to mean provide a structure that supports the student; the structure can be modified and taken away as the support is no longer needed.

Scaffolding has two general types, hard and soft.  Hard scaffolding, aka embedded, are those activities which are planned in advance for topics that are known to be difficult.  Soft, aka contingent, interactional, or (my term) just-in-time is support that is given as and when needed.  To hopefully illustrate:

-        A hard scaffold could be a SIOP modeled lesson plan where key content and vocabulary is defined and taught; several examples are demonstrated by the teacher; hands-on, step-by-step activities are then conducted by the students; student coaching is conducted to further refine the concept; and finally students individually work problems of increasing complexity to engage higher level learning.

-        A soft scaffold is the teacher circulating through the classroom and offering prompts, giving advice, and coaching.  Instead of answering direct questions from students, a scaffolded response would be to ask a re-directing question back to the student that provides cues but requires the student to think.

There are numerous references on-line.  Several that I found useful are:

-        Education.com which has a good overview article

-        This YouTube video which provides a good oral overview

-        And this YouTube video which provides some good do’s and don’ts for teachers

Hope that helps; keep calm and scaffold on!