Scaffolding

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“(The educator) calls upon the services of powerful forces in the environment, directs them, and places them in the service of education.”

“Education is realized through the student’s own experience, which is wholly determined by the environment, and the role of the teacher (tutor) then reduces to directing and guiding the environment.” (Vygotsky, 1926, 1997 p. 50)

Definition

“Scaffolding is a critical component in facilitating students’ learning (see Chi et al., 1994, 2001). Scaffolding involves providing assistance to students on an as-needed basis, fading the assistance as learner competence increases (Wood et al., 1976). Scaffolds are tools, strategies, and guides used by human and computer tutors, teachers, and animated pedagogical agents during learning to enable them to develop understandings beyond their immediate grasp (Graesser et al., 2000; Reiser, 2002).”

Considerations

“Considering and adapting support to fundamental and often subtle developmental changes in students’ cognitive, metacognitive, motivational factors, is essential for increasing potential for students to benefit from scaffolding (Pintrich & Zusho, 2002).”

Notes:

(a) What attributes of scaffolding are emphasized? Scaffolding may support a range of instructional targets including: (a) learning domain knowledge (e.g., concepts, procedures, etc), (b) learning about one’s own learning (e.g., metacognition, self-regulated learning), (c) learning about using the computer-based learning environment (e.g., procedures, embedded tools, functionality, etc), and (d) learning how to adapt to a particular instructional context (e.g., engaging in adaptive help-seeking behavior, modifying contextual features to facilitate learning, etc.).

b) What kind of learning is supported through scaffolding? Within each of these instructional targets, scaffolding may support the development of declarative, procedural, conceptual, or metacognitive knowledge. Scaffolding

(c) What or who is the source of scaffolded support? (d) What kinds of scaffolds are effective? (e) How are scaffolding needs diagnosed (see Table 1), and (f) What are the future

directions and challenges to be faced?

References

• AZEVEDO1,R., HADWIN, A.F. (2005) Scaffolding self-regulated learning and metacognition – Implications for the design of computer-based scaffolds. Instructional Science33: 367–379

• Bereiter C., Scardamalia, M. (1987a) The Psychology of Written Composition. Hillsdale, NJ: L. Erlbaum.

• Vygotsky, L. S. (1924, reprinted 1997) Educational Psychology. CRC Press LLC, Florida, USA.

• Vygotsky, L. S. (1978) Mind in society: The development of higher mental processes (M. Cole, V.John-Steiner, S. Scribner, & E. Souberman, Eds.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

• Wood, D., Bruner, J.S., Ross, G. (1976) The role of tutoring and problem solving. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. Vol. 17, pp. 89-100 in Langer, J., Applebee, A. (1986) Reading and Writing Instruction: Toward a Theory of Teaching and Learning. Review of Research in Education. Vol. 13. pp. 171-194.

• Wood, D., Wood, H. (1996) Vygotsky, Tutoring and Learning. Vygotsky and Education. Oxford Review of Education, Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 5-16