Effective Teaching and Learning: scaffolding revisited

Abstract

Education has taken on board the concepts of ‘scaffolding’ and ‘Zone of Proximal Development’ because embedded within them is a psycho‐social model of teaching and learning. In this paper these concepts are examined in schooling contexts rather than those of everyday life. A first section outlines the ideas of the American socio‐cultural school, for example, Cole, Lave, Rogoff etc. and their link with the work of Vygotsky. Three sections are then devoted to a brief appraisal of the work of researchers who have been particularly concerned with scaffolding and schooling: Newman, Griffin and Cole; Tharp and Gallimore, and Wood on effective learning through scaffolding and contingent control. Section 7 is devoted to our research which sets out to explore and identify scaffolding strategies in three specific primary schooling contexts: design and technology, mathematics and science. We show the difficulty of scaffolding specialist knowledge and analyse the reasons for the absence of scaffolding in the classrooms observed. The last two sections set out our ideas on the differences between scaffolding everyday knowledge and specialist knowledge.