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Scaffolding Content Learning for All Students

Students need to be given opportunities to do what the teacher modeled, but with teacher assistance that gradually diminishes as students acquire the skill or knowledge. Jerome Bruner (1985) introduced the metaphor of a scaffold to support learning. This term was related to Lev Vygotsky's zone of proximal development (ZPD), which describes the learning that progresses just beyond what a student can do independently (1981). I tend to think of scaffolding as “just enough help to get them to the next level of learning.” Scaffolding is also explained as “gradually releasing responsibility” to the learner. This means that the teacher gradually turns over the task to the student who does it more and more independently (Alvermann & Phelps, 2002).

To illustrate the scaffolding of learning, imagine a master artist with several apprentices. The master artist does not simply let her apprentices gather in the corner and create products on their own all day. She works with them, models various steps, voices her thought processes while she works, asks for comments, and provides clear feedback. On the other hand, she doesn't give a long lecture as the apprentices listen and take notes, with the goal of passing the multiple choice test on sculpture next Friday. This would be similar to the teacher-centered formats that tend to be too rigid and incomprehensible for struggling learners, not to mention boring and irrelevant to them.

The teacher does most of the task in the beginning, then uses scaffolding activities to build up student abilities at the task. For example, a teacher may start a lesson on interpreting figurative language with a popular song and then show students how to fill in a chart that helps them to interpret figurative meanings (see LitFigs Chart, Chapter 13). Gradually, the teacher allows students to fill in the chart with less and less assistance, until eventually the chart is taken away and students can discuss figurative interpretations without extra support.

Students need to work with new ideas and language in supported ways to effectively acquire them. Lev Vygotsky (1978) also pointed out that children internalize the thinking and language patterns of more proficient speakers. This happens when new language and concepts are just above the student's current levels of proficiency. Vygotsky called this concept the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). Vygotsky's insights provided a theoretical foundation for Jerome Bruner's (1986) studies of child language development. In his research of mothers and their children, Bruner described their shared learning experiences using the term scaffolding, which has since become a popular metaphor for an apprenticeship-style support of learning.

Scaffolding involves providing high levels of language support in the early stages of learning and gradually taking the support away so that a learner develops independence. The trick is providing the proper amount of support-not too much and not too little-all along the way. This is also known as the gradual release of responsibility. the learner gradually takes on more responsibility and independence.

Another metaphor for scaffolding is coaching. A coach models, scaffolds, and provides feedback to players as they practice, and even as they play real games. A coach explicitly explains strategies and techniques, and then organizes more realistic practice sessions to prepare for real games. As a basketball coach might model a shot, we teachers must model our thinking and language to help students take on new, academic frames of reference. As we notice that students fail to understand or use a skill, we increase our support. Or, as we see that students are developing competence, we withdraw our guidance. We work alongside students as they hone their skills every day of the learning season.

Learning by Building

The latter stages of scaffolding involve doing something with learning. In the real world, facts and concepts are usually learned to create a larger product or performance that demands much more thinking than just memorizing facts. To prepare students for real world thinking, we need to let students use what they learn, not just pile up facts and rules inside their brains. So even if standards say things such as “Know the…Trace the …Understand the…” we need to remember that students will learn such knowledge much better when they actually do something interesting with the knowledge in combination with skill-based standards.

As students do things in the discipline, they build up skills to recognize patterns and abilities to apply language skills fluently in new ways. Students go from novices who use much of their energy on attending to new facts and skills to almost-experts who can quickly recognize patterns and sharpen their skills as they apply them to new and more complex understandings.

(Condensed from Building Academic Language: Essential Practices for Content Classrooms and
Developing Academic Thinking Skills in Grades 6-12: A Handbook of Multiple Intelligence Activities)