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Definition of Scaffolding in Teaching
Scaffolding in teaching is the mindful and temporary implementation of various supports for students to complete activities that may otherwise pose too large a challenge at their current abilities. As the name suggests, like the support structures used in building buildings, scaffolding in teaching is a way for teachers to mindfully work on building student skills before being removed for students to stand on their own. Interventions that are intended to be permanent for a student are not called scaffolds, but accommodations.
For example, it could be a scaffolding strategy for a student with dyslexia to temporarily get a reader for their tests to help them access a novel before trying a future text without the support, but if the reader was a permanent addition for the student then it would be an accommodation. Scaffolding can be implemented by any teacher as a strategy to help any struggling student do better in class, but accommodations generally need to be recommended by an educational psychologist in order to be utilized on standardized testing and not have long term consequences for the student if they can no longer access the accommodation in the future.
Scaffolding is often implemented to help students with learning disabilities to complete class activities alongside other students, but scaffolding can be used with any and all students to help them to more mindfully learn skills, develop better approaches to learning, and tackle larger challenges. Scaffolding can be used in the context of entire classes, single projects, or even study sessions.
For example, a teacher could scaffold in teaching a math class for a student with dyscalculia through strategies designed to temporarily give them more time or support in classwork and homework load. Similarly, a teacher could scaffold a project or activity by assisting students with the first problems together or with extra instructions before allowing them to continue on to completing the rest independently.
A student can even be taught to scaffold themselves in a study session through having two columns, one column with class vocabulary and the other column with the corresponding definitions. The student can simply read through the terms the first time to remind themselves of the terms and definitions they have studied already in class and then cover half of the definition and trying to remember the half that is covered.
Then the student can cover all but the first word or letter before covering the definitions entirely and attempting to remember the entire definition with no supports. This approach allows students to develop good approaches to learning that they can implement independently in their futures and gives them a solid foundation in areas they may be weak or just currently struggling in.
Scaffolding may seem easy and something teachers already naturally include in lesson plans, but scaffolding needs to be increased or decreased for different classes, different units, and different students. Giving students too many scaffolds will result in them becoming reliant on the support as a crutch but giving too few will make students feel hopeless and unsupported. An expert teacher can use scaffolding very flexibly and knows when it is time to remove the supports and allow the student to stand on their own confidently and with new foundations and tools to learn independently.
Benefits of Scaffolding in Teaching
1. Students can access higher levels of work that would be otherwise unattainable.
One of the primary goals of scaffolding in teaching is to give students support as they work to complete difficult challenges. Because of its efficacy at helping students to handle difficult work, scaffolding is great at introducing complex new ideas, or more difficult versions of previously studied concepts. It also allows students who are struggling to build skills independently to get past learning plateaus or overcome a pessimistic defeatist attitude.
2. Scaffolding in teaching allows for a more inclusive classroom that includes and empowers students of various skill sets and aptitudes.
Scaffolding in teaching is also great for making classes more inclusive and efficient by allowing more students to access the materials offered in a single course. Rather than having to resort to pull out models where students with learning difficulties are taken into a separate classroom with a separate teacher, classes that implement good scaffolding strategies can support more students effectively reducing the number of teachers and classrooms needed as well as making students not feel ostracized for being worse than their peers.
3. Many scaffolding resources can be easily reused.
One of the nice things about scaffolding is that often the same resources can be used to help many students over many years. Resources such as those used to pre teach vocabulary to support students in accessing the language in a difficult text, or versions of instructions for assignments that break up each step into further steps can be used again and again as long as the same texts or assignments are being used each year.
This means that even though it takes some time to create multiple versions of the same instruction sheet, one with more detail, more checklists, and more steps, this work can be used to help many students over many years. Additionally, there are many scaffolding strategies that teachers have uploaded online that can even sometimes be free that teachers can use instead of having to always create something from scratch.
Steps to Scaffold an Activity
- Identify the required skills to complete the activity.
The first step when a teacher seeks to scaffold something is to identify what skills a student will need in order to successfully do the activity or be successful in the class. For example, if a student is tasked with writing a literary analysis essay, the student will need to be able to recognize literary techniques, write analytical paragraphs, and understand how to identify themes of a text.
One of the supports a teacher might implement for students who are struggling with this activity is a drill or exercise intended to build one of those skills. So if a student is struggling to recognize literary terms, the teacher might provide them with a list of common literary devices as they work in class. This will scaffold their weakness in the area and also be taken away when they have a better foundation of their understanding of literary terms.
Whatever the task, there are always certain skills and expectations a student will need to have in order to be successful. In a math class, it is expected that students have a basic understanding of certain concepts like multiplication and division before they are able to move on to more complex tasks like algebra or calculus.
If a student is still struggling with basic skills required in their current course, a teacher could introduce some scaffolding like the use of a calculator or times table so that they can access the higher level material as they work to catch up on their basics.
- Create targeted supports for the skills the student is struggling with.
After the target skill has been identified, the teacher will need to decide which scaffolds will be most useful for the student. When deciding on scaffolding, it is important to consider the source of a student’s struggles. If a student is struggling to do well on tests in a science class, it could be that they are struggling with the mathematics required to solve problems or it could be that they are lacking vocabulary to be able to understand the questions being asked. In each case, a different scaffold will be necessary to appropriately support the student.
- Break projects into smaller steps
Oftentimes, students struggle with whole projects and it is difficult to identify exactly where students are having issues. One way to tackle this issue is to give students instruction sheets that break down how to do each of the steps in the original instructions. For instance, if a student is struggling to understand the instructions for an essay that expect students to understand essay structure, the teacher might consider making a version of the instructions that actually breaks down that students should write an introduction that ends with a thesis statement and body paragraphs that include evidence and analysis.
This is often best in the form of a checklist where students have to mindfully check off that they’ve included all required elements. This approach helps students who are struggling with basics to still be able to work on the same texts as their peers while temporarily getting checklist reminders on how to build a basic essay.
Even writing on the board that students should “study for the upcoming test” may be beyond some students who think “studying” includes staring at a page for 5 minutes willing information to go into their brain before giving up. Breaking down study strategies for some students with written resources can help them more mindfully study for tests as well as develop better approaches to learning.
Creating review sheets or study checklists can help strong students to not miss any topics from class and suggest ways they can deepen their learning while simultaneously helping students who have poor approaches to learning see what steps they could take that would help them to study more mindfully. For example, suggesting students make flash cards of bold terms, do practice problems, or look over their last test or essay will help them to more mindfully do these things in the future when teachers aren’t willing or able to hand hold.
- Shrink supports slowly over time.
While giving students supports, resources, and tools is great, it is important that these strategies are implemented in such a way that they can be reduced or removed incrementally. For example, a teacher might allow a student who is struggling with their processing speed to have a bit of extra time to complete their tests or write in class essays.
This extra time could be mindfully reduced as the student gains competency and confidence. Vocabulary lists can initially include definitions to help students have everything they need all together on one page, but later teachers can only include a list of key terms that students are expected to look up and define for themselves. Then the list of terms can be taken away and students can be expected to make their own list of key terms from studied materials. This will develop their ability to independently identify important concepts and have strategies to figure out words they don’t know.
- Create a schedule to monitor efficacy of interventions.
One of the things a teacher will have to consider when reducing scaffolding is when to make a change. It can often be easy to implement a support and just never really bother taking it away. Then, before teacher or student realize it the year is ending and little progress has been made in developing the students independence in their area of weakness. Because of this, teachers should have a schedule of when they think a student is ready for the next stage of scaffolding.
This schedule can sometimes be shared with the student to give them clear expectations and goals to shoot for. Sometimes though it is best, especially with students who are struggling with their confidence, to keep this schedule private for only the teacher to consider. This way, the teacher can extend scaffolding when necessary or change course without making the student feel like a failure.
Is Scaffolding Only for Students with Special Needs?
Scaffolding in teaching is not only for students with special needs, but is a strategy that any expert teacher uses to introduce new difficult concepts and support students who are struggling to keep up. The reason that scaffolding is associated with students with learning difficulties is that scaffolding is often one of the first suggestions given to teachers when they have a student with learning differences.
However, teachers naturally scaffold new concepts for all students when they say “let’s do the first few together” and walk students through the steps of completing a problem before having them work on it independently. Teachers can use scaffolding in a large variety of situations and with many different students to help develop skills and provide an inclusive classroom.
Research on Scaffolding in Teaching
A metastudy, a study that compares the data from multiple other studies to create a large pool of data and control for mitigating factors, was conducted on the many sources reporting on scaffolding in an online environment to see what impact it had on student educational outcomes in higher education. According to the researchers; “The meta-analysis revealed that scaffolding in an online learning environment has a large and statistically significant effect on learning outcomes.” (Doo et al.)
In the ever increasing digital world, there is sometimes a temptation to simply download programs or apps that claim to be able to teach students which would seem like a great low effort shortcut. However, this research suggests that while the internet and computers allow classrooms to access new advanced and interactive educational programs, there will always be a need for teachers to help guide students through materials through scaffolding.
Teachers shouldn’t shy away from using online resources, especially when required to do so for students who can not attend in person. Teachers need to be constantly monitoring students’ progress, performance, and regularly do mindful interventions to support struggling students and scaffold in even more difficult challenges for high performing students.
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References
Doo, Min Young, et al. “A Meta-Analysis of Scaffolding Effects in Online Learning in Higher Education.” The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, vol. 21, no. 3, 2020, https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v21i3.4638.
