Hello Friends,

In this edition of WinkWorld I will share an article from ERIC* written by Martha Larkin on scaffolding. Patti Cone, a colleague from Chicago, brought this article to my attention. Thank you, Martha and Patti for sharing. In Prairie Pedagogy, I am sharing a poem, Calf Path, which I learned of in Dripping Springs TX, when the superintendent, Mary Ward, read it for the opening convocation of the staff. Dawn shares an amazing true incident about a mad bull, a surprised horse, a wet dam, and a mad dad; names have been changed to protect the guilty. Yes, of course, it was Dean. Incidentally, we surprised Dean with a surprise 60th birthday party this month.

*more on the new federal government's ERIC next month. The saga continues.

Retrieved September 14, 2004, from http://ericec.org/digests/e639.html Also available from http://www.vtaide.com/png/ERIC/Scaffolding.htm

What Is Scaffolding?
(In what follows I am quoting from the initial pages of the Larkin article.)

The concept of scaffolding (Bruner, 1975) is based on the work of Vygotsky, who proposed that with an adult's assistance, children could accomplish tasks that they ordinarily could not perform independently.

Scaffolded instruction is "the systematic sequencing of prompted content, materials, tasks, and teacher and peer support to optimize learning" (Dickson, Chard, & Simmons, 1993.)

Scaffolding is a process in which students are given support until they can apply new skills and strategies independently (Rosenshine & Meister, 1992).

When students are learning new or difficult tasks, they are given more assistance. As they begin to demonstrate task mastery, the assistance or support is decreased gradually in order to shift the responsibility for learning from the teacher to the students. Thus, as the students assume more responsibility for their learning, the teacher provides less support.

For example, a young child or a child with physical disabilities likely would need assistance when learning how to use a playground slide (Dixon, 1994). At first an adult might carry the child up the steps and slide with the child several times. Then some of the scaffolding or support would be removed when the adult placed the child on the lower portion of the slide and allowed him or her to slide with little guidance. The adult would continue to remove the scaffolding as the child demonstrated that he or she could slide longer distances successfully without support.

The remainder of this article can be found at the URLs or hardcopy mentioned below. Happy Reading.

Larkin, M. J. (2001). Providing support for student independence through scaffolded instruction. TEACHING Exceptional Children, 34(1), 30-34. or
ERIC Identifier: ED 474301
Publication Date: 2002-12-00
Author: Larkin, Martha
Source: ERIC Clearinghouse on Disabilities and Gifted Education Arlington, VA.

Phamily Fotos
Dean's 60th Birthday Party in CO