Scaffolding Instruction Strategies

Scaffolding refers to the educational technique of delivering content gradually to support high-quality and organic learning. A teacher that scaffolds their instruction unfolds new material slowly and builds numerous supports into their teaching, moving on only when every student has reached comprehension. The Purpose of Scaffolded Instruction The goal of scaffolding is to meet students at their ability level and guide them to grow one step at a time. This learning follows logical patterns of progression and keeps supports in place until students are able to demonstrate proficiency without them. Scaffolding should not be reserved for students with disabilities and English language learners—this practice is fundamental to all effective and equitable teaching. By layering new knowledge onto existing knowledge, students have stronger and broader foundations of understanding. Scaffolding provides more opportunities for accommodating students individual needs along the way than more traditional teaching methods. Strategies for Scaffolding Scaffolding your teaching requires the use of many different strategies, all of which aim to make learning more meaningful and therefore more prosperous for students. Use these techniques to design supportive instruction. Activate Prior Knowledge Take advantage of what your students already know. Scaffold your instruction by reminding your students what they have learned and helping them fit new information into their brains by finding out what they already know about concepts you havent taught yet. Prior knowledge also includes a students personal experiences and areas of expertise. Rather than ignoring differences between your students in an effort to level the playing field, draw on each set of unique knowledge to teach the whole class. Encourage students to connect learning to their own lives and share these connections with others. Break It Down Break new material down into bite-sized pieces and check in with students often. Scaffolded instruction should resemble a staircase where every new concept has its own stair. Rather than delivering complicated content all at once and testing for understanding at the end, give challenging concepts their own room to breathe and assess student progress as it is happening. Ask questions to make sure all students understand before taking another step together. Teach Students to Learn (and Practice) One of the defining features of scaffolded instruction is student-directed learning. Scaffolding emphasizes the importance of equipping students with tools that allow them to guide their own learning and giving them plenty of space to practice using them. Scaffolding makes the journey just as important as the destination Give your students strategies rather than answers. Encourage them to practice asking their own questions, making predictions, and drawing conclusions and teach them that its okay when they are wrong. Scaffolding allows students to take charge so that they are prepared to approach any problem, not just the one right in front of them. Model Always show desired outcomes before students complete a task. Show, dont tell, is one of many mantras that teachers who practice scaffolding follow. Help your students to see exactly what success looks like, whether that is a line of questioning they should follow or an example of a finished product, so that they have something to reference when it is time for them to independently demonstrate proficiency. Practice modeling thought processes, activities, and skills every time you teach new information. Provide Context Motivate your students and make information easier to understanding by providing its context. Front-load new topics with all the details necessary for understanding them. Students are too often asked to learn new material in a vacuum and then expected to apply it correctly but the best learning happens when teachers help students make connections and give big pictures and themes instead of seemingly unrelated pieces. Some examples of helpful context include: Timelines for historical events—teaching when things happened as well as what happened. This makes it easier to understand how events fit together.Teaching key vocabulary terms before reading a text to boost comprehension.Explaining the reasons for applying a mathematical strategy before showing students how to use it so they can practice applying it as intended. Use Cues and Supports Scaffolding is not possible without supports—take advantage of several. Visual and verbal aids and cues make information easier to understand, remember, and apply. Use organizational tools such as graphic organizers, visuals such as charts and photographs, and verbal cues such as mnemonic devices and chants as training wheels as students learn until they fully understand and no longer need these scaffolds. Good teaching is about making information stick, not drilling it and hoping that it does on its own.

A Research Project On Food And Nutrition, Watching Jamie...

My research project question was inspired by my overweight friend in year 5, who used to purchase lunch orders from the school canteen every day. Studying Stage 2 Nutrition lead me to become further intrigued by this topic and drew me to question how the school canteen could have contributed to friend’s weight issues and why some canteens are still less inclined to act on the issue of obesity than other school canteens. My research into this topic consisted of two interviews, a primary school survey, literature review of various books on food and nutrition, watching Jamie’s School Dinners documentary series, and internet research. My outcome is in the form of a report explaining the results of my research. The key finding of my research†¦show more content†¦Even though the study was conducted eleven years ago, through cross reference with other sources, I found similar problems and concerns evident in the documentary series are still consistent and current with today’s primary school children. The nutritional evidence from Jamie’s School Dinners was further supported by my literature research. The information found by my literature research was highly reliable due to my main source of nutrition information coming directly from my SACE Stage 2 Nutrition text book. This is a highly reliable source as it is an official SACE text book written for the stage 2 nutrition course. The authors of this book, Karen Magee and Meredith Oliver, are also both highly experienced stage 2 teachers, with specialist backgrounds in nutrition. This information was exceedingly helpful as it helped me when choosing specific foods to add to my designed primary school canteen menu. The information was also useful when discussing the benefits and nutritional needs of primary school children in my outcome The psychological aspects evident in Jamie’s School Dinners were further expanded on by one of my interviews with a studying psychologist. This interview was in-depth and I gained a more comprehensive understanding of the reasons why children refuse to eat various foods, and the various reasons they prefer other foods. The process of conducting the interview was managed successfully as first I emailed many different psychologists, however, I

Home School Essay Example For Students

Home School Essay Before the beginning of American public schools in the mid-19th century, home schooling was the norm. Founding father John Adams encouraged his spouse to educate their children while he was on diplomatic missions (Clark, 1994). By the 1840s instruction books for the home were becoming popular in the United States and Britain. The difficulty of traveling to the system of community schools was provoking detractors. At this time, most of the country began moving toward public schools (Clark, 1994). One of the first things early pioneers did was set aside a plot of land to build a school house and try to recruit the most educated resident to be the schoolmarm. This led to recruiting of graduates Eastern Seaboard colleges to further the education oftheir children beyond what they could do at home (Clark, 1994). As the popularity of the public school movement began to rise behind Horace Mann many states soon passed compulsory-education laws. These were designed primarily to prevent farmers , miners, and other parents form keeping their kids home to work (Clark, 1994). Ironically another factor behind public schools was the desire to use them to spread Christian morality, with its concern for the larger good over individualism (Clark, 1994). Massachusetts enacted the first such laws in 1852 requiring children ages 8-14 to be at school at least 12 weeks a year unless they were too poor. The laws proved to be effective, from 1870-1898 the number of children enrolling in the public schools outpaced the population growth. Except for certain religious sects and correspondence schools home schooling remained limited for most of the 20th century. During the 1960s the hippie counterculture exploded into the scene. This culture led a revolt against the education establishment. Thousands of young Americans began dropping out of society and going back to the land to live on communes that generated the modern home schooling movement. Twenty years ago, many states did not allow home schooling. Constitutional protection has always been uncertain. The U.S. Supreme Court has never explicitly ruled on home schooling. Although in 1972, in Wisconsin v. Yoder, the Court did restrict compulsory school requirements in a limited ruling involving the right of Amish students not to attend high school (Lines, 1996). In Wisconsin v. Yoder, the Amish parents claimed that high school attendance was destructive to their childrens religious beliefs and would interfere with their pursuit of the Amish way of life (Fisher, Schimmel, and Kelley, 1995). Since this ruling there have been many court cases dealing with the issue of home schooling. All 50 states allow home schooling ad 34 states have enacted specific home schooling statutes or regulations (Clark, 1994). What drives many home-schoolers are the well-documented social troubles and the declining test scores in the public schools. In 1991, the total number of children being home schooled was between 248,500 and 353,500. Many public educators feel that children who are home schooled are missing out on key learning situations that come from the public school. For instance the sciene experiments, these would be very costly to duplicate at home. Also they argue that home school children miss out on the social aspect of school. Very often they are not around many children their age and socialization does not take place. As the home schooling movement has become more widespread, state and local officials have responded with more vigorous enforcement of their compulsory education laws. As a result of this there is more litigation and new regulations. As both parents and school officials evidence increasing inflexibility, the statues play a central role in the battle over the education of the child. A secondary role is played by the courts which, in resolving the disputes between parents and the schools, must interpret and test the statutes (Chiusano 1996). Tell tale heart EssayThis program allows parent to work with public school officials. The public school teacher meets with the home school family every two weeks (Dahm, 1996). The most recent issue being dealt with by local school boards and state governments are the extent to which home schooled students can participate in school sports and other activities. The issues in how far public schools can open their doors to home schoolers include science labs, music classes, and extracurricular activities, but athletics get the most attention according to the Home School Legal Defense Fund (Brockett, 1995). That is because competitive sports are the one activity families can not easily duplicate as their children reach high school age. The Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association, after three state judges ruled against home schoolers being barred from playing on public high school teams, has initiated a one year open door trial program (Brockett, 1995). A Pennsylvania federal court ruled the constitutional rights ofa 14 year old taught at home were not violated, when the Frazier school district refused to let him play sports because the district could not verify his grades and attendance. In a related situation the Governor of Florida vetoed legislation that would have opened extracurricular activities to home schoolers. He explained that no state law bans them from participating. This left standing a policy of the Florida High School Athletic Activities Association banning non students on the theory that they can not represent what they do not attend (Brockett, 1995). This negative attitude of High School Athletic Associations has led parents of home schooled athletes to take their argument to court. For example, in Massachusetts, Melissa Daviswas allowed to play on Norton High School softball team even though she is home schooled (Blum, 1996). The state court judge ordered Norton to allow her to play believes she may have a chance to earn an athletic scholarship to college. To be eligible to play athletics a home schooled athlete must apply to the association for a waiver of its initial eligibility rules, submitting documents proving what they were taught at home meet N.C.A.A. standards. Under these standards a home schooled athlete who has sufficiently high standardized test scores and proof that they took at least 13 courses that meet the associations core course standards may be automatically awarded freshman eligibility (Blum, 1996). From the recent decisions handed down by the courts, public school teachers and schools are expected to cooperate with home school educators. The hostility between the two groups has began to disappear and the focus has returned to seeing that the students get the best education they can. If both sides of the spectrum continue to work together this can be achieved. Social Issues Essays