Business and Marketing Education

SCAFFOLDING & GROUPING Effect Size 0.49 Implementation Tools & Resources

Scaffolding is a process in which students are given support until they can apply new skills and strategies independently (Rosenshine & Meister, 1992) in both behavior and academics. When students are learning new or challenging tasks, they are provided with more assistance. As they begin to demonstrate task mastery, the assistance or support is decreased gradually in order to shift the responsibility for learning from the teacher to the students. Thus, as the students assume more responsibility for learning, the teacher provides less support. The purpose of scaffolds are to give ALL students access to critical content by anticipating and pre-empting potential problems and misconceptions in the classroom. Appropriate scaffolds, both in the classroom and in a digital learning environment, help to ensure that students are appropriately challenged with enough support so that they don’t experience frustration. Structure of the Scaffolded Classroom: The organization of the scaffolded classroom includes whole group, small group (skill-based or station teaching), partnering, and independent work. The scaffolding supports that will be put in place for all learners should include interventions for struggling, striving, and accelerated learners. When using small groups, identify the groups as skill-based or station teaching. Skill-based groups are organized homogeneously based upon the needs of students. Station teaching groups are organized heterogeneously to create diverse groups of learners. Students need scaffolds in all learning environments, whether blended or virtually.

Critical Actions for Educators *Use data (both qualitative and quantitative) to anticipate student needs and provide access points. *Use data from Dashboard to set up Precision Partnering for your students. *Present information at various levels of difficulty. *Use data to identify needs and create small groups to target specific skills. *Frequently analyze current data and move students within groups depending on their changing needs.

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Ways to use Scaffolds in an Instructional Setting *Consider how each scaffold can be used in a face-to-face, blended, or digital learning environment. Tools used to introduce new content and tasks to help students learn about the topic: Venn diagrams to compare and contrast information; flow charts to illustrate processes; organizational charts to illustrate hierarchies; outlines that represent content; mnemonics to assist recall; statements to situate the task or content; rubrics that provide task expectations. Prepare a list of items required, things to be done, or points to be considered; used as a reminder as the student proceeds through the learning task. Plan for student to work in partners or small groups based on skills and needs in both face-to-face and digital environments. Maps that show relationships: Partially completed maps for students to complete; students create their own maps based on their current knowledge of the task or concept. Prepared cards given to individual groups of students to assist in their discussion about a particular topic or content area: Vocabulary words to prepare for exams; content-specific sentence stems to complete; formula to associate with a math problem; concepts to define. Samples, specimens, illustrations, problems, modeling: real objects; illustrative problems used to represent something. Demonstrate and model how to do something, giving an example of what it should look like.

Advance Organizers

Checklists

Collaborative Grouping

Concept and Mind Maps

Cue Cards

Examples

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