Breaking learning into chunks can help students to tackle complex material more easily. Scaffolding is an effective way to encourage students to solve problems by gradually supporting them towards understanding and independence. What are the key elements for teachers?
Key concepts and definitions
The support given by teachers during scaffolding depends upon the characteristics of the type of task (well-structured, or ill-structured) and the responses of the student. Since impact-driven education deals with wicked problems, scaffolding is certainly necessary consideration when designing a impact driven course.
Scaffolding is an interactive process between a teacher and student, in which both must actively participate. Key concepts in this process are:
- Contingency: a teacher acts contingently when they adapt the support to a (group of) student(s). Contingency is often referred to as tailored, differentiated, adjusted or responsive support. To provide such support, the student’s level of competence and learning must first be determined. Therefore, diagnostic strategies are a tool for contingency.
- Fading: with scaffolding, the support of a teacher decreases over time. The rate of this fading is dependent on the students’ development.
- Transfer of responsibility: through contingent fading, responsibility for the performance of a task is gradually transferred to the student. The student takes increased learner control.
These key concepts must be considered together.
Roadmap / checklist
Step 1: Identify what the students already know and activate their prior knowledge.
Step 2: Check your diagnosis: make sure you are aligned with the needs of your students, so you can adapt your support to their level of knowledge or skill.
Step 3: Support strategies. This step is about modelling, demonstration, providing instruction and feedback and guided prompting.
Step 4: Check for understanding. This step is about checking whether the support was sufficient and identifying which students might need a little more.
Conclusion
Scaffolding can be an effective way of enabling students to tackle complex problems by cutting them into chunks and connecting those to knowledge or skills that students already have. Therefore, it could be a good method for impact-driven education when students have to deal with societal urgencies solving wicked problems or complex societal issues and it helps them focus on their learning process.
Relevant books & sources
van de Pol, J., Volman, M. & Beishuizen, J. Scaffolding in Teacher–Student Interaction: A Decade of Research. Educ Psychol Rev 22, 271–296 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-010-9127-6
van de Pol, J., Volman, M., & Beishuizen, J. (2012). Promoting teacher scaffolding in small-group work: A contingency perspective. Teaching and teacher education, 28(2), 193-205.
Zackariasson, M. (2020). Encouraging student independence: Perspectives on scaffolding in higher education supervision. Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, Vol. 12 No. 3, pp. 495-505. https://doi.org/10.1108/JARHE-01-2019-0012