Scaffolding Tools and Templates
Many of us probably think of a scaffold as a temporary framework that supports a building during construction. When the structure is sturdy enough to stand on its own, the scaffold is removed. In an educational sense, scaffolding, in the form of coaching or modeling, supports students as they develop new skills or learn new concepts. When the student achieves competence, the support is removed. The student continues to develop the skills or knowledge on his or her own.
- Joe Banaszynski
Scaffolding, or supporting students' acquisition of skills they need to do their assignments more effectively (e.g., problem solving, organizing and tracking information, communicating), is probably something that good teachers have always done. But technology gives teachers new and unique ways to do it. For example, acquisition of new vocabulary can be supported by linking words on a Web page to a separate page with definitions. And as computer-aided, project-based, independent learning becomes more prevalent, incorporating scaffolding into the learning process becomes essential to good lesson design.
Overview
Scaffolding for Success
In this issue of The Educational Technology Journal, author Jamie McKenzie defines eight characteristics of good scaffolds and provides links to several projects that use scaffolding tools effectively.
Teaching the American Revolution: Scaffolding to Success
This Education World article shares how an 8th grade history teacher uses scaffolding to make a project on the American Revolution a success.
Biomes of the World
This project provides a good example of a research assignment that embeds scaffolding tools (question list, question card, and working checklist) into the task description to help students conduct their research.
Types of Scaffolds
Kent School District, Washington, has a Web site with examples of different types of scaffolding and methods for students.
Graphic Organizers
A graphic organizer is a specific type of scaffolding tool. It is a way to visually represent an idea--to use a drawing to organize one's thinking. Graphic organizers include cycles, webs (e.g., cluster, network, org chart, family tree, chain of events), maps (e.g., spider, fishbone, concept), continua (e.g., timelines, degree scales), matrices (e.g., compare/contrast, storyboard), Venn diagrams, and charts (e.g., flow, KWL, SQ3R). The following sites contain several examples:
Big 6 Research Paper and Assignment Organizers
The St. Andrew's Episcopal School in Austin, Texas, provides (authorized) links to worksheets that help students organize their approach to research and school assignments according to the "Big 6" problem-solving principles. A link is also provided to the Super 3, which is a simplified Research Process for primary students:
Process Guides
Guides
This San Diego Unified School District site provides guidelines and procedures for various processes that allow students to be more efficient (brainstorming, building consensus, interview techniques, etc.). This Web page was designed for student use.
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