The selections that we read about
Teachers and fundamental philosophies that guide how we interact with our
students in learning communities were all very good and encouraged me to think
in a more theoretical way about my teaching style. However, none rang as true as Vygotsky’s supportive
assistance to the learner, and especially the concept of “fading.” I have also seen this concept referred
to as “vanishing”. The concept of scaffolding has been something that I have
done for literally decades, and it has been very successful in producing
confident learners that have a desire to go on and continue to learn more. People love to learn, we are build to
acquire information. As Bill said,
“try to go a day without learning something.” We just have to convince the students that 1) they are
learners and 2) what we are trying to show them is important and achievable. It
is often negative experiences that cause people to think that they can’t:
write, do math, sing, draw, learn a language, or acquire any new skill.
Since I work primarily in helping
students with writing projects I’ve probably had over a hundred students tell
me, “I can’t write very well” or “I hate writing” and after working at the
Writing Center for several sessions to later tell me, “I wish I had known this
before” or “this is really fun”.
One of the students who I first met a few years ago came in saying he
hated writing, wasn’t very good at it, and just wanted to pass the class. He loved to talk and he had a lot of
opinions, once he learned the tools for writing he started getting 4.0 in all
his classes (he had a 1.5 GPA before).
He now works at the LCC Writing Center and is majoring in Professional
Writing. I used the principles of scaffolding and vanishing, but I also added
quite a bit of direction in the very beginning of our interactions. This student had a very poor self
image, he had faced a lot of failures in his life and he wasn’t at the point
where I could even give him a simple task and let him finish it alone. We had to walk together through it.
I find that students often are very insecure at first, I know
that I am also this way, and it helps tremendously to have initial guidance and
simple tasks, so both the facilitators (instructor) and the learner (student)
are able to work together through the task. First of all I think it is
important to talk to the student and find out their goals…in a one-to-one
setting this is very easy. In an
online setting this can often be accomplished through guided introductions
–people love to talk about themselves and through their disclosure we can often
find clues that help us to see their overall goals and their apprehensions in
writing. I like to be more directive at first, demonstrate how things can be
done. Note: I always emphasize
this is ONE of the MANY ways to approach writing, there is no “right” or
“wrong” method. I like to work
like a chef on a cooking show. I
always discuss each step that I
suggest and tell the learner(s) why I do things in this particular
way. Then I step back and work
more as a cheerleader and when needed sometimes give more specific guidance
like a mentor. But always giving
honest evaluation, looking for areas that are really promising. Even the most
basic reader can tell when something is written effectively. False praise
doesn’t help them and they lose respect for the instructor. But just criticizing doesn’t help at
all either. There needs to be a
balance and a recognition of what elements are good in the learner’s writing
and what elements need revision.
As I look to better refine my own
writing, and especially my teaching philosophy statement, it helps tremendously
to look at the theoretical background that other experts have already developed
to see what we can learn. And I
guess that brings me to one of my other key beliefs. The best teachers are also learners.
