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| Getting students to recognize the solution. Source: http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1990/09/15 |
"Scaffolding" as it is laid out in the study "The
Role of Tutoring in Problem Solving"[1] is
a method of tutoring that not only considers, but also teaches, the individual
"component skills" (89) required of a student in order to be able to
complete a larger task. In this particular study, scaffolding involved ensuring
that 3, 4, and 5 year-olds were able to assemble appropriate pairs and then
groups of blocks in order to construct a pyramid, but it is easy to see how
this method can be usefully applied to range of other teaching situations at
all levels of learning. What is particularly interesting to me, however, is the
question of how to apply scaffolding, which is described in the study in terms
of a one-on-one tutoring situation, to a larger classroom setting.
As it is described in the study, scaffolding should allow
for trial-and-error, allowing students to figure out certain tasks on their own
before tutor intervention either corrects or builds on the student's progress.
This means that each step is determined in
response to the student's success with the previous one, and not
predetermined. But what is the best way to go about this when you have a class
of 19 students, whose responses to each step may vary widely? How do you
develop a single task in response to 19 different assignments? Is it possible
to address everyone's needs this way?
One way to deal with this may be through the use of examples
in class. Wood, Bruner and Ross note that "the learner must be able to recognize a solution to a particular
class of problems before he is himself able to produce the steps leading to it without
assistance," and also cite a study that illustrated the ability of
students to "discriminate between good strategy and bad" in a game of
Twenty Questions, "even though unaided they could not produce good strategies
or even good questions" (90). I have already found it useful to be able to
use essays written by previous Rhetoric students to illustrate points in class
and encourage my students to think about the smaller activities we engage in as
a class in the context of the sort of graded writing they will really have to
produce. Using good examples from the work of students currently in the class
may also be useful, although I would not want to use current examples of bad
work in the same way. This way, students can compare their own writing with
examples of well-written work (it would be important here to use varied
examples where possible, so as to emphasize that there is not a single, correct
mode of writing, but many) and recognize the ways in which their own work could
improve. Even this, I feel, would be better paired with individual written
feedback, in order to properly prepare students for the next assignment.
And what of those students whose work produced the good
examples? I worry that too many levels of scaffolding would not provide enough
of a challenge for them. How can we create a classroom environment that is
challenging and stimulating for these students, while also taking advantage of
the clear benefits that scaffolding presents?
[1] Wood,
Bruner, and Ross (1976) "The Role of Tutoring in Problem Solving."
Journal of Child Psychology.
I like the questions you pose here about expanding scaffolding in a larger classroom setting. I've also been trying to figure out to do when some students seem ready for the next step and others are overwhelmed by the current step.
ReplyDeleteI think one way we are challenging students in a way they are probably unaccustomed to is the collaborative essay. This whole new world of managing deadlines, editing, and co-authoring is brand new to most of them and it becomes a new set of problems for them to negotiate. The advanced student (or so I've noticed in my section) is usually the one who is less concerned with their writing and instead focuses on the logistics of the collaborative work, taking up that leadership role in a sense.
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