Scaffolding

"Scaffolding is all about providing the right amount of structure in a learning environment, keeping in mind that some learners may require little or no structure and others may require a lot of structure." - Dabbagh

The article Scaffolding: An Important Teacher Competency in Online Learning was of great interest to me. As I mentioned in my entry "My Students", in an Elementary Spanish class I have students who have really never studied the language before, but at the same time I have some students who already studied Spanish for a few years in high school. There is a big range there, and it sometimes poses a challenge when I'm developing activities. There are certain activities that I know will be a challenge for some of my students, but at the same time, I need to make these activities open ended, or find a way to give all of my students the opportunity to showcase their abilities, of whichever level, and not be limited to an overly simple task.

"low scaffolding is recommended when learners have high prior knowledge, possess a wide range of cognitive strategies, are flexible and highly motivated, have low anxiety, and attribute success and failure on tasks to internal factors. Alternatively, high scaf- folding is recommended when learners have low prior knowledge, possess few cognitive strategies, have high anxiety, low motivation, and an external locus of control."

I appreciate the fact that this article mentions anxiety levels. This is something I have mentioned in the past, being aware of the potential anxiety in a learning environment, and I believe is especially crucial in a second-language learning environment. The article goes on to discuss "Scaffolding Strategies" and first on the list is "Establishing an atmosphere of trust and an open and friendly community of learners". As most of you may already know, this was also one of the elements that I included in my Teachnology Statement from day one in our class. For me, it is very important to develop an environment where students feel comfortable and aren't embarrassed when it comes time to work in groups and share their thoughts with each other. Sharing your thoughts becomes even more anxiety-provoking when you are in a second-language learning environment, so I do whatever I can to eliminate the anxiety of sharing with classmates to counterbalance the anxiety of speaking a second-language.

Needless to say, all of the strategies on that list are of great value to me. I will try my best this up-coming year to be a "scaffolder" instead of a teacher. It is not my role to dispense knowledge, but to provide resources. This is especially easy to accept in a second-language classroom because I truly cannot dispense knowledge of the language, whereas some teachers of other subjects (and I'm not defending this) may really feel as it is their goal to transmit their own knowledge of the subject to their students through lecturing; I'm thinking, maybe a science teacher would feel this way. But really, in a second-language classroom, it's true. I cannot just hand my students the knowledge of the language that I possess. I have to provide them with the proper resources and provide them with activities that require critical and analytical thinking to learn the language through their own exploration.