What Is Instructional Scaffolding?
Using new information and skills does not come naturally. Think about the process of a child learning to walk, or when you learned to ride a bicycle, or even drive a car. In real life, people don’t simply read an article and then jump on a bike or turn the ignition and go. Even if they’ve watched others do it for years and understand the technical steps (which pedals make the car go and stop, where the turn signal is, or how to put the vehicle in drive), rarely do people read a manual and jump in the driver’s seat without extensive practice and training from someone in the passenger seat. And most kids don’t jump on a bike and take off without first having an adult’s hand holding the seat until the child is ready to let go (or the adult can’t keep up!).
The Russian child-psychologist Lev Vygotsky proposed the concept called the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). He suggested that between what a learner simply cannot do and what a learner can do unaided lays a range of skills that they can do with targeted assistance. Some have referred to this as a “‘sweet spot’ where instruction is most beneficial for each student—just beyond their current level of independent capability.” Once one understands the concept, the goal is to find what students can and cannot do, then develop the “support structure” to help them develop the skills they need.
Instructional Scaffolding refers to the supports provided by educators to help students move through the ZPD. As students develop the proximal skills, the supports (like training wheels) are gradually removed until what the students could not do before is now mastered. Another way to understand the concept is that, at the beginning of the learning process, the teacher provides more of the support and responsibility for the demonstration of the knowledge and skills. As time passes in the learning experience, the teacher’s support fades and responsibility for demonstrating the knowledge and skills passes more to the learner (van de Pol, et al. 2010).