[FRIAM] Instructional scaffolding - Wikipedia

Sat Apr 10 19:47:55 EDT 2021

Well, Eric;  there you go, shrugging again. 

That would be like saying of “affordance”, something you can do something with.  

Here, let me make “scaffolding” more palatable to you. 

To Scaffold a task, is to provide affordances for its successful completion.  Is that better? 

I don’t think providing instruction is an essential feature of scaffolding.  The wise parent keeps his effing mouth shut.  As a Famous Artist once said to me at a book signing when I asked her What could I do to help my prodigious artist grandson?, she said “Buy art materials!”

Or as Kahil Gibran once famously said: “You are the bow from which your children as arrows fly; let you bending in the hands of The Archer be for joy.”

N

Nick Thompson

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Saturday, April 10, 2021 2:45 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Instructional scaffolding - Wikipedia

This sounds like a lot of big fancy words for very simple things. 

>From Wikipedia: 

Scaffolding is changing the level of support to suit the cognitive potential of the child. Over the course of a teaching session, one can adjust the amount of guidance to fit the child's potential level of performance. More support is offered when a child is having difficulty with a particular task and, over time, less support is provided as the child makes gains on the task. 

So, like.... yeah... If something is too hard for someone to do, and you make it easier, then he/she might be able to do it. That ain't rocket science. It also fits in perfectly well with operant conditioning approaches (i.e., shaping, chaining). There is a reason kindergarten art class doesn't declare you a failure if you cannot produce Raphael-esque realism. There is a reason someone who wants to compete a dog in a dog show doesn't start out expecting the dog to be able to do the whole routine. 

Later Wikipedia says: 

Vygotsky was convinced that a child could be taught any subject efficiently using scaffolding practices by implementing the scaffolds through the zone of proximal development.

Is that different than just saying: "A child can be taught any subject if you give them easy bits at the start, and move to harder bits at a pace the child can keep up with." ??

Maybe we need to add: "And if they get stuck, try giving them a bit more guidance." ??

On Fri, Mar 26, 2021 at 7:08 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> > wrote:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instructional_scaffolding#Theory_of_scaffolding 

Great meeting, today.  Sorry I overslept.  I promised last week to provide a definition of “scaffolding”,  as in to “scaffold” learning, or some other frail or undetermined process, so as to facilitate its success.  For me the clearest example of scaffolding I know is what the surgical nurse does for the surgeon when she (sorry) lays out his tools in order on the tray beside him.  It is also connected in my mind with a theory of how best to teach kids stuff.  Your strategy should always be somewhere in the middle ground between letting the kid figure it out for himself and just doing it for the kid. Scaffolding relates to the concept of the Zone of Proximal Development, which is the “space” between the tasks which the kid can do expertly and the tasks the kid has no idea how to do them.  So, for instance, in playing a game which involves say, putting blocks into appropriately shaped windows, the mother may do it once her self, then not do it herself, but hold the block in the right order in her hand near the child, then hold them in a scrambled order in her hand so the child has to select the order, and finally spill the blocks out and leave the child to find them himself.  So at each stage she designs her support the child’s idea  needs, withdrawing support as the child becomes more capable.   To me (and perhaps me, alone) the of scaffolding relates to the question of the origin of life debate because it contrasts with the idea of “self” organization, which I have never understood.  Instead of imagining that chemicals just lie about in cess pools until a miracle happens, the theory asserts that life was scaffolded by white smokers in the deep ocean.  White smokers are volcanic vents in the deep ocean floor that are constantly emitting a flow of very hot water laden with solutes.  As the water cools it forms intricate structures with minute cavities which mimic, in some regards, the properties of cells.  Thus the smokers (on this theory) scaffold life by making cell boundaries before there are cell walls to contain the somatoplasm .  

All the Erics will correct me, but that is the best I can do with my ambulator knowledge. 

Nick

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