In the article The Use of Scaffolds for Teaching Higher-Level Cognitive Strategies, Barak Rosenshine and Carla Meiser list many documented ways scaffolding has been successfully implemented in classrooms, which yielded higher order thinking and processing skills by the students. Furthermore, these strategies once implemented, take no more time than without because learners need less scaffolding once he or she understands the material at a higher level. The scaffolds "bridge the gap between their current abilities and the intended goal".
At Castleberry High School, we strive to fill each lesson with higher level learning that is student centered. According to Rosenshine and Meiser, "scaffolds can be applied to the teaching of all skills, they are particularly useful, and often indispensable, for teaching higher-level cognitive strategies, where many of the steps or procedures necessary to carry out these strategies cannot be specified". These strategies include: models, concrete prompts, think-alouds, simplified problems, suggestions and hints; each can be used generously at first and less as students are capable of leading their learning through higher order thinking.
My five takeaways from the article:
1.) Reciprocal teaching- student lead which shifts responsibility of learning to students and away from teachers.
2.) Think-alouds- teacher explains his or her thought process as he or she gives students examples of the problems and steps.
3.) Concrete prompts- basically question stems made for students. Allows the student with an established procedure to start the thinking process.
4.) Keep the scaffolding within the students' "zone of proximal development". Students cannot learn AP Physics no matter how much scaffolding, unless they first have the sufficient background ability learned in other Science classes.
5.) If we do not implement scaffolds, our instruction at CHS is inadequately preparing students for college or post-high school learning.
Please take time to post your five takeaways from the article, and then comment on my post and one from a peer. (3 total posts)
