Instructional scaffolding is the support given to a student by an instructor throughout the learning process. This support is specifically tailored to each student; this instructional approach allows students to experience student-centered learning, which tends to facilitate more efficient learning than teacher-centered learning. This learning process promotes a deeper level of learning than many other common teaching strategies.
Instructional scaffolding provides sufficient support to promote learning when concepts and skills are being first introduced to students. These supports may include resource, compelling task, templates and guides, and/or guidance on the development of cognitive and social skills. Instructional scaffolding could be employed through modeling a task, giving advice, and/or providing coaching.
These supports are gradually removed as students develop autonomous learning strategies, thus promoting their own cognitive, affective and psychomotor learning skills and knowledge. Teachers help the students master a task or a concept by providing support. The support can take many forms such as outlines, recommended documents, storyboards, or key questions.
Essential features
There are three essential features of scaffolding that facilitate learning. The first feature is the interaction between the learner and the expert. This interaction should be collaborative for it to be effective. The second is that learning should take place in the learner's zone of proximal development. To do that the expert needs to be aware of the learner's current level of knowledge and then work to a certain extent beyond that level. The third feature of scaffolding is that the scaffold, the support and guidance provided by the expert, is gradually removed as the learner becomes more proficient. The support and guidance provided to the learner are compared to the scaffolds in building construction where the scaffolds provide both "adjustable and temporal" support to the building under construction. The support and guidance provided to learners facilitate internalization of the knowledge needed to complete the task. This support is weaned gradually until the learner is independent.
Effective scaffolding For scaffolding to be effective teachers need to pay attention to the following: The selection of the learning task: The task should ensure that learners use the developing skills that need to be mastered. The task should also be engaging and interesting to keep learners involved. This task should be neither too difficult nor too easy for the learner. The anticipation of errors: After choosing the task, the teacher needs to anticipate errors the learners are likely to commit when working on the task. Anticipation of errors enables the scaffolder to properly guide the learners away from ineffective directions. The application of scaffolds during the learning task: Scaffolds could be organized in "simple skill acquisition or they may be dynamic and generative". The consideration of emotional issues: Scaffolding is not limited to a cognitive skill and can also support emotional responses (affect). For example, during a task the scaffolder (expert) might need to manage and control for frustration and loss of interest that could be experienced by the learner. Encouragement is also an important scaffolding component.
Theory of scaffolding Scaffolding theory was first introduced in the late 1950s by Jerome Bruner, a cognitive psychologist. He used the term to describe young children's oral language acquisition. Helped by their parents when they first start learning to speak, young children are provided with informal instructional formats within which their learning is facilitated. A scaffolding format investigated by Bruner and his postdoctoral student Anat Ninio, whose scaffolding processes are described in detail, is joint picture-book reading. By contrast, bed-time stories and read-alouds are examples of book-centered parenting events without scaffolding interaction. Scaffolding is inspired by Lev Vygotsky's concept of an expert assisting a novice, or an apprentice. Scaffolding is changing the level of support to suit the cognitive potential of the child. Over the course of a teaching session, one can adjust the amount of guidance to fit the child's potential level of performance. More support is offered when a child is having difficulty with a particular task and, over time, less support is provided as the child makes gains on the task. Ideally, scaffolding works to maintain the child's potential level of development in the zone of proximal development (ZPD). An essential element to the ZPD and scaffolding is the acquisition of language. According to Vygotsky, language (and in particular, speech) is fundamental to children's cognitive growth because language provides purpose and intention so that behaviors can be better understood. Through the use of speech, children are able to communicate to and learn from others through dialogue, which is an important tool in the ZPD. In a dialogue, a child's unsystematic, disorganized, and spontaneous concepts are met with the more systematic, logical and rational concepts of the skilled helper. Empirical research suggests that the benefits of scaffolding are not only useful during a task, but can extend beyond the immediate situation in order to influence future cognitive development. For instance, a recent study recorded verbal scaffolding between mothers and their 3- and 4-year-old children as they played together. Then, when the children were six years old, they underwent several measures of executive function, such as working memory and goal-directed play. The study found that the children's working memory and language skills at six years of age were related to the amount of verbal scaffolding provided by mothers at age three. In particular, scaffolding was most effective when mothers provided explicit conceptual links during play. Therefore, the results of this study not only suggest that verbal scaffolding aids children's cognitive development, but that the quality of the scaffolding is also important for learning and development.
A construct that is critical for scaffolding instruction is Vygotsky's concept of the zone of proximal development (ZPD). The zone of proximal development is the field between what a learner can do on their own (expert stage) and the most that can be achieved with the support of a knowledgeable peer or instructor (pedagogical stage). Vygotsky was convinced that a child could be taught any subject efficiently using scaffolding practices by implementing the scaffolds through the zone of proximal development. Students are escorted and monitored through learning activities that function as interactive conduits to get them to the next stage. Thus the learner obtains new understandings by building on their prior knowledge through the support delivered by more capable individuals. Several peer-reviewed studies have shown that when there is a deficiency in guided learning experiences and social interaction, learning and development are obstructed. Moreover, several things influence the ZPD of students, ranging from the collaboration of peers to technology available in the classroom.
In writing instruction, support is typically presented in verbal form (discourse). The writing tutor engages the learner's attention, calibrates the task, motivates the student, identifies relevant task features, controls for frustration, and demonstrates as needed. Through joint activities, the teacher scaffolds conversation to maximize the development of a child's intrapsychological functioning. In this process, the adult controls the elements of the task that are beyond the child's ability, all the while increasing the expectations of what the child is able to do. Speech, a critical tool to scaffold thinking and responding, plays a crucial role in the development of higher psychological processes because it enables thinking to be more abstract, flexible, and independent. From a Vygotskian perspective, talk and action work together with the sociocultural fabric of the writing event to shape a child's construction of awareness and performance. Dialogue may range from casual talk to deliberate explanations of features of written language. The talk embedded in the actions of the literacy event shapes the child's learning as the tutor regulates his or her language to conform to the child's degrees of understanding. shows that what may seem like casual conversational exchanges between tutor and student actually offer many opportunities for fostering cognitive development, language learning, story composition for writing, and reading comprehension. Conversations facilitate generative, constructive, experimental, and developmental speech and writing in the development of new ideas.
In Vygotsky's words, "what the child is able to do in collaboration today he will be able to do independently tomorrow". (Original works published in 1934, 1960).
Some ingredients of scaffolding are predictability, playfulness, focus on meaning, role reversal, modeling, and nomenclature.
Levels and types in the educational setting According to Saye and Brush, there are two levels of scaffolding: soft and hard. An example of soft scaffolding in the classroom would be when a teacher circulates the room and converses with his or her students. The teacher may question their approach to a difficult problem and provide constructive feedback to the students. According to Van Lier, this type of scaffolding can also be referred to as contingent scaffolding. The type and amount of support needed is dependent on the needs of the students during the time of instruction. Unfortunately, applying scaffolding correctly and consistently can be difficult when the classroom is large and students have various needs.Gallagher, 1997 Scaffolding can be applied to a majority of the students, but the teacher is left with the responsibility to identify the need for additional scaffolding.
In contrast with contingent or soft scaffolding, embedded or hard scaffolding is planned in advance to help students with a learning task that is known in advance to be difficult. For example, when students are discovering the formula for the Pythagorean Theorem in math class, the teacher may identify hints or cues to help the student reach an even higher level of thinking. In both situations, the idea of "expert scaffolding" is being implemented: the teacher in the classroom is considered the expert and is responsible for providing scaffolding for the students.
Reciprocal scaffolding, a method first coined by Holton and Thomas, is a method that involves a group of two or more collaboratively working together. In this situation, the group can learn from each other's experiences and knowledge. The scaffolding is shared by each member and changes constantly as the group works on a task. According to Vygotsky, students develop higher-level thinking skills when scaffolding occurs with an adult expert or with a peer of higher capabilities. Conversely, Piaget believes that students discard their ideas when paired with an adult or student of more expertise.Piaget, 1928 Instead, students should be paired with others who have different perspectives. Conflicts would then take place between students allowing them to think constructively at a higher level.
Technical scaffolding is a newer approach in which computers replace the teachers as the experts or guides, and students can be guided with web links, online tutorials, or help pages. Educational software can help students follow a clear structure and allows students to plan properly.
Directive and supportive scaffolding