Scaffolding is a classroom teaching technique in which instructors deliver lessons in distinct segments, providing less and less support as students master new concepts or material. Much like scaffolding on a building, this technique is meant to provide students with a framework for learning as they build and strengthen their understanding. When students reach the intended level of comprehension or mastery, the teacher can step back and gradually remove their support.
https://pce.sandiego.edu/scaffolding-in-education-examples/#:~:text=Scaffolding%20is%20the%20process%20of,concepts%20and%20master%20new%20skills.
Scaffolding is an instructional practice that has evolved from a formal and narrow conception of expert-novice interactions to one that is potentially peer-based and highly situational. Scaffolding can be used for a variety of purposes, using diverse resources in order to respond to learners’ needs.
When the support provided by teachers is fixed and constantly expected, it can no longer be considered temporary. In extreme circumstances of overuse, scaffolds become buttresses, cannot be removed without everything toppling down.
In contrast, focusing on scaffolding helps draw our attention to what happens between teachers and students so students can work more independently, to their maximum potential. This view is consistent with the original spirit and intent of scaffolding first articulated 3 decades ago.
https://singteach.nie.edu.sg/2007/05/01/issue06-ideas02/
Scaffolding tends to focus on content and the process of delivering the content. Focus on the learner is subsumed as part of the content treatment and delivery from the instructor’s perspective. Personalisation of learning is secondary and incidental.
Psychologist Jerome Bruner first proposed the theory of educational scaffolding in the 1970s. Bruner and other psychologists used the term to describe how preschool teachers helped students learn through extensive explanations before withdrawing so students could work independently. The word itself refers to construction, because scaffolding in education is similar to a temporary platform.
The philosophy of scaffolding is very similar to the Zone of Proximal Development Theory, which states that because new skills are often difficult for children to learn on their own, they are often more easily developed with the help and encouragement of a teacher.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-scaffolding-education-xq-institute/
The origin of the practice of scaffolding was for preschoolers, and then expanded for younger children. Now, it is adopted in the adult learning sector with minimal context adjustment for adults. Many “pedagogical” strategies have been indiscriminately adopted for “andragogical” learning experiences.
“Deep learning stems from knowledge gap awareness and curiosity to fill these gaps.”
Present day’s over-focus on certification and mass production of courses do not allow for the “Negative affect, dissonance and metacognitive calibration also drive deep learning.”
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959475221000475
Students deserve an opportunity to grapple with ideas and information. They need to wallow a bit in the learning pit (Nottingham, 2017), and they need to experience both productive success and productive failure (Kapur, 2016). If we pre-teach and front-load too much, and we don’t take the training wheels away, students have a hard time finding their own momentum and balance as learners. This problem of practice led us to ask the question: How do teachers get better at supporting learners in the process of learning rather than removing the struggle?
https://www.lwtears.com/blog/are-we-scaffolding-too-much
Mentors / Masters in apprenticeship programme have throughout the ages used failure-driven experiences, uniquely engineered to embed deep learning in the journey to solve problems.
Deliberately removing scaffolding to let learners struggle ‘at the deep end of the swimming pool’ is a failure strategy that puts learners in the centre of their own learning, fostering ownership for self development and heighten self awareness. Will a comfortable learning environment or one where the learners’ equilibrium is disturbed be more conducive for productive learning?
In reality, real and impactful learning begins when we leave the comfort of the classroom or online lessons.
The true function of the teacher is to create the most favorable conditions for self-learning.… True teaching is not that which gives knowledge, but that which stimulates the learner to gain it.
JOHN MILTON GREGORY
One might say that he teaches best who teaches least.
Additional reading:
- https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Early_Childhood_Education/Instructional_Methods_Strategies_and_Technologies_(Lombardi_2018)/11%3A_Scaffolding/11.08%3A_Challenges_and_benefits_of_scaffolding
- https://www.jstor.org/stable/26901436
- https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/course-design-ideas/shortcomings-of-the-scaffolding-metaphor-for-teaching/
Power to the Edge 
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