InstructionalScaffolding

Shelley Shott

Intel Corporation

ICT in Education Conference

Durban, South Africa

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Today's learners are challenged to:

• know how to learn

• access changing information

• apply what is learned

• address complex real-world problems

in order to be successful

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What Teachers Want

The ultimate academic goal is for students to become independent lifelong learners, so that they can continue to learn on their own

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What is Scaffolding?

• Scaffolding is a process that provides support for the students to promote learning and to keep them from straying too far off the path but they are temporary

• Often used when skills are first being introduced to the students

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Scaffolds are activities and tasks that:

•Engage students interest in what is to be learned

•Could tap prior knowledge

•Make the task easier for the student to achieve success

•Provide guidance to help the student manage the activity or task

•Gives criteria and indicators that allow students to achieve their goal

•Reduces frustration

•Model and clearly define the expectations of the activity to be performed (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking, 2000).

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Activity 1 – Brainstorm and Discussion

Small Group Share – large group report out

• In a small group, brainstorm what you think you do in your classroom that scaffolds learning to help your students be successful?

• Have1 person in your group record your ideas

• Share a couple of ideas with the whole group

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Different Types of Scaffolding

•Soft– Probing Questions

•Hard (structured) - includes things like:– Templates

– Resources – RSS, VodPod, hyperlinks

– Outlines

– Mind-mapping

– Storyboards

– WebQuests

– Social bookmarking (del.icio.us)

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Scaffolding examples

• As students begin to demonstrate task mastery, the assistance or support is decreased gradually in order to shift the responsibility for learning from the teacher to the students

Key Point

Getting good at scaffolding is NOT the goal

If learners cannot perform the task or produce the product without the scaffold in place, we have produced

DEPENDENT learners

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Schumm, Vaughn, and Saumell (1992) found that the use of scaffolded instruction tends to decrease as students advance through the grades, despite the fact that older students want the assistance provided by such instruction

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Scaffolding during Projects

• Student’s prior knowledge is tapped

• Objectives identified

• Rubrics shared at beginning of project

• Examples of expectations are shared

• Mini-lessons on new skills

• Checklist for monitoring progress

• List of resources givenProject Introduction

Visualize students climbing a series of ladders

A possible scenario is:

• First the teacher does the task and models it for the students

• Second the teacher and the class do the task together

• Third the students do the task either in a small cooperative group or with a partner

• Fourth the individual does the task

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Technology and Scaffolding

With technology, teachers can use:

hidden slides, (finished example)

forms,

hyperlinks,

templates, (finished example)

checklists,

rubrics, etc

With technology, the information is right where the student needs it**

If time = take screen shot of Help Guide and put it in

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Activity 2 - Create a Scaffold for Your Students

•Hidden Text

•Letter Template

•Use Word and create a form– Help Guide 10.1

•Use Excel to create a checklist– Assessing Projects – Help Guide 4.23, 4.35

•Do a ppt with hidden slides

•Create a document with resource/hyperlinks for a research paper

•Or anything else you would like

•Look at Hidden Text and Forms document for help

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Scaffolding with Web 2.0Web 2.0 allows for a variety of ways to scaffold work for students:

• blog, • Content management, personal reflection, work submission, Clay Animation,

etc

• wiki • Personal Learning Environment, Data Collection, etc

• Podcasts, VodPod,

• Webquest,

• Discussion board,

Social Bookmarking – Delicious- http://delicious.com/

Scaffolding video - http://www.techlearning.com/article/2166 *(sometimes this link works, other times it doesn’t)

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Activity 3 – Activities in a Web 2.0 World

Part 1:

Individually, look at the two links below:

• Webquest – Water Cycle – (original, web-page based)

• Looking at Webquests in a 2.0 world

Part 2:

• With a partner, document how you could add more 2.0 to the Water Cycle Webquest.

Part 3:

• Group Share

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Activity 4 – Creating a Scaffold Using Web 2.0

• Spend some time looking through some of the resources on the next slide to see how else Web 2.0 can be used to scaffold learning for your students

• Create a plan for a scaffold using Web 2.0 or if you have time, create the scaffold

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Resources

http://www.techlearning.com/article/2166

http://heyjude.wordpress.com/student-tools-let-them-fly/

http://www.slideshare.net/johnnigelcook/cook-1697245

http://project.bazaar.org/category/web-20/

Do your own search to see what you can find