Other times, you’ll serve as lifeguard, staying dry and keeping an eye on things as you allow your students to interact with the flotation devices they need before they’re ready to dive into the deep end solo.
Define scaffold how to#
Sometimes your role will be swimming instructor, jumping into the pool with your students, teaching them things like how to breathe or how to do the backstroke. Your support keeps their motivation for learning afloat (pun intended).
And just like you would never leave a child who can’t swim alone in a pool, you’ll always provide support to students working in their ZPD. You are that more knowledgeable other Lev Vygotsky was referring to in his work. Whether you’re teaching online, following a hybrid model, or in person, your presence (literally, if you’re stuck behind a computer) is critical to the success of scaffolding. Nstruction and scaffolds are always intended to give students frequent access to grade-level content so they can reach standards, that high bar set for them and their classmates. Just like physical scaffolding on buildings is removed as construction is completed, supportive learning structures and strategies must be incrementally removed when formative data indicates students no longer need them to be successful. Then construct specific plans for when and how scaffolds will be removed as students achieve successive levels of independence with content. We recommend designing scaffolds by planning with the end in mind, that is, beginning with grade-level standards and determining how to provide all students access and opportunities for mastery. Driven by positive intent to prevent student frustration, many teachers tend to leave a scaffold in place for too long, creating the potential for students to become reliant on the support and decreasing the likelihood of independence and growth. “Temporary” is a key word there (as critical as the word “complex.” Don’t lose sight of those grade-level standards).
Define scaffold professional#
In our professional learning workshops, we define scaffolding as the temporary supports teachers provide students so they can access complex content. In my experience, scaffolding is one of the most misunderstood and misused approaches in education.
Ready to delve into how to do that? Let’s start at the very beginning: by demystifying scaffolding. The instruction and scaffolds are always intended to give students frequent access to grade-level content so they can reach those standards, that high bar set for them and their classmates.
Once we know where students are academically, we can begin to think about how to challenge and support them, specifically by planning instruction targeted on content they can’t yet access independently and by providing appropriately designed and timed scaffolds so they can get there on their own, eventually. (Bill Amend, of FoxTrot fame, must read this blog regularly because he just drew a hilarious strip about what it can feel like for a student to tackle math outside their ZPD.) I’m so glad you’re back for more. In my last post, we covered the basics on ZPD: what it is, why it matters, and how to identify it for each student.
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