Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Scaffolding as Crutch




Perhaps due to its now-ubiquitous usage as a teaching technique, the scaffolding metaphor, as explicated by Wood, Bruner, and Ross, does not seem particularly revelatory to me. Instead, many of the aspects seem rather self-evident: eliciting the interest of the student, focusing on mastering the area of knowledge just beyond the student’s comprehension before advancing, and maintaining direction as an educator all seem standard fare. Granting that much of what Wood, Bruner, and Ross propose is perfectly reasoned, I will use my blog post to play devil’s advocate and discuss shortcomings I find in the scaffolding method at the heart of our Rhetoric 105 courses.

Typically, after going over a certain portion of material in my class, I will stop to ask my students if they have any questions. In the vast majority of instances, they do not. While this may be due to social anxiety, lethargy, or other factors, I believe that, mostly, they do not have any questions because the material covered is not challenging. This is where I believe the scaffolding method falters. In an attempt to avoid student failure and frustration, scaffolding has the potential to undervalue the intellectual capacity of students. Relating somewhat to a point Alex brings up in her post: how do we properly institute scaffolding (a technique devised for individual learning) in a class of 19? Do we gear the scaffolding towards those with the least knowledge? If we do, does it alienate the rest of the class?

In my own experience, I have made the most gains as a student when I have been challenged and allowed to fail. In our rhetoric courses, we ask our students to “consider stakes” when attempting to establish exigent research questions. If scaffolding eliminates frustration (if students know the pace of the course is dictated by them) then what are the stakes? If there is no possibility for failure, how are the students challenged?

The first tenet of the scaffolding proposed by Wood, Bruner, and Ross is “Recruitment.” They state: “the tutor’s first and obvious task is to enlist the problem solver’s interest in and adherence to the requirements of the task” (98). This sounds perfectly reasonable, but when taken to excess, it could pose a problem. Relating this to the Rhetoric 105 course, I believe that the attempt to reach the students “on their level” is potentially taken too far. Not because it caters too much to the interest of the individual students, but because I have found it to be ineffective as a teaching device. I highly doubt that the etext elicits more engagement from the students due to its technological and interactive nature; on the contrary, my students seem completely disinterested by the videos embedded in the etext. In addition, the simplicity and brevity of the material as well as the informal tone (presumably attempting to reach the students “on their level”) in the etext seem to foster a similar indifference.

I am aware that there are other issues that come into play with the Rhet 105 course. There are many non-native speakers who would have difficulty in a more challenging class. I wonder, though, if our students are being infantilized. After all, the subjects of the scaffolding study were 3,4, and 5 years old. 

2 comments:

  1. I agree with you that the language of E-text walks a fine line between simplicity and relatability. To play devil's advocate for the E-text though, perhaps we should consider the audience: first year college students that are primarily majoring in the sciences and who think that working on their writing is irrelevant to their future (or so some of my students have told me). These types of attitudes can make teaching the rhetorical triangle difficult and maybe that is why direct references to rhetorical devices do not hog up space in the e-text. In other words, maybe the creators of the e-text anticipated these difficulties and tailored the rigors of the course to suit the student.

    p.s. The only videos I've found that students find interesting are the ones with Dr. Loui and Dr. Berenbaum since they are from the sciences and more respectable than those other humanities folk.

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  2. That post about fall in past make so sad that there should be safe in that places.. we one to be aware of that in scaffolding in work.. thanks for post and keep updating more post.. by Scaffolding Manufacturer In Bangalore .

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