scaffolding research assignments

Designing Research Assignments: Scaffolding Research Assignments

• Student Research Needs
• Assignment Guidelines
• Assignment Ideas
• Scaffolding Research Assignments
• BEAM Method

What is scaffolding?

Educational scaffolding refers to the process of providing temporary supports for learners to guide them towards achieving a goal or completing a complex task. 

Scaffolding can take many forms. One type of scaffolding is called process scaffolding, where a complex task, such as a research paper is broken down into smaller, more manageable parts. 

Attribution

Portions of this page were modified from Lehigh University Libraries'  Information Literacy in ENG2: An Instructor Guide  and Modesto Junior College's Designing Research Assignments Guide . 

Scaffolding a Research Assignment

Scaffolding Suggestions

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Designing Research Assignments

• Scaffolding
• Rethinking Requirements
• The BEAM Method
• Threshold Concepts

Assuming Students are Good at Research

Students are very good at finding things online. They are less adept at evaluating the resources they locate and utilizing them to support or refute a point they are making or engaging in the academic conversation on a given topic.

Instead of assuming students are good at research, consider designing research assignments as though students know little to nothing about the academic research process and scaffold assignments as much as possible. This allows students to build a foundation for their future work. Throughout the assignment, incorporate elements of threshold concepts in information literacy alongside those from your discipline. 

Scaffolding Examples

One effective method of scaffolding is to take a complex assignment and break it into smaller components. Providing formative feedback on the earlier assignments will help students master each step in the process before proceeding further. This type of scaffolding helps students get started on complex assignments early and ensures that they are on track throughout.

Troubleshoot Scaffolding

Adapted from Skene, Allyson and Sarah Fedko. " Assignment Scaffolding ." Centre for Teaching and Learning, University of Toronto Scarborough,   https://ctl.utsc.utoronto.ca/technology/sites/default/files/scaffolding.pdf. 

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Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 and CC BY-NC 4.0 Licenses .

Scaffolding Methods for Research Paper Writing

• Resources & Preparation
• Instructional Plan
• Related Resources

Students will use scaffolding to research and organize information for writing a research paper. A research paper scaffold provides students with clear support for writing expository papers that include a question (problem), literature review, analysis, methodology for original research, results, conclusion, and references. Students examine informational text, use an inquiry-based approach, and practice genre-specific strategies for expository writing. Depending on the goals of the assignment, students may work collaboratively or as individuals. A student-written paper about color psychology provides an authentic model of a scaffold and the corresponding finished paper. The research paper scaffold is designed to be completed during seven or eight sessions over the course of four to six weeks.

Featured Resources

• Research Paper Scaffold : This handout guides students in researching and organizing the information they need for writing their research paper.
• Inquiry on the Internet: Evaluating Web Pages for a Class Collection : Students use Internet search engines and Web analysis checklists to evaluate online resources then write annotations that explain how and why the resources will be valuable to the class.

From Theory to Practice

• Research paper scaffolding provides a temporary linguistic tool to assist students as they organize their expository writing. Scaffolding assists students in moving to levels of language performance they might be unable to obtain without this support.
• An instructional scaffold essentially changes the role of the teacher from that of giver of knowledge to leader in inquiry. This relationship encourages creative intelligence on the part of both teacher and student, which in turn may broaden the notion of literacy so as to include more learning styles.
• An instructional scaffold is useful for expository writing because of its basis in problem solving, ownership, appropriateness, support, collaboration, and internalization. It allows students to start where they are comfortable, and provides a genre-based structure for organizing creative ideas.
• In order for students to take ownership of knowledge, they must learn to rework raw information, use details and facts, and write.
• Teaching writing should involve direct, explicit comprehension instruction, effective instructional principles embedded in content, motivation and self-directed learning, and text-based collaborative learning to improve middle school and high school literacy.

Common Core Standards

This resource has been aligned to the Common Core State Standards for states in which they have been adopted. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, CCSS alignments are forthcoming.

State Standards

This lesson has been aligned to standards in the following states. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, standard alignments are not currently available for that state.

NCTE/IRA National Standards for the English Language Arts

• 1. Students read a wide range of print and nonprint texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and nonfiction, classic and contemporary works.
• 2. Students read a wide range of literature from many periods in many genres to build an understanding of the many dimensions (e.g., philosophical, ethical, aesthetic) of human experience.
• 3. Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).
• 4. Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.
• 5. Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.
• 6. Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (e.g., spelling and punctuation), media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts.
• 7. Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems. They gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g., print and nonprint texts, artifacts, people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose and audience.
• 8. Students use a variety of technological and information resources (e.g., libraries, databases, computer networks, video) to gather and synthesize information and to create and communicate knowledge.
• 12. Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning, enjoyment, persuasion, and the exchange of information).

Materials and Technology

Computers with Internet access and printing capability

• Research Paper Scaffold
• Example Research Paper Scaffold
• Example Student Research Paper
• Internet Citation Checklist
• Research Paper Scoring Rubric
• Permission Form (optional)

Preparation

Student Objectives

Students will

• Formulate a clear thesis that conveys a perspective on the subject of their research
• Practice research skills, including evaluation of sources, paraphrasing and summarizing relevant information, and citation of sources used
• Logically group and sequence ideas in expository writing
• Organize and display information on charts, maps, and graphs

Session 1: Research Question

You should approve students’ final research questions before Session 2. You may also wish to send home the Permission Form with students, to make parents aware of their child’s research topic and the project due dates.

Session 2: Literature Review—Search

Prior to this session, you may want to introduce or review Internet search techniques using the lesson Inquiry on the Internet: Evaluating Web Pages for a Class Collection . You may also wish to consult with the school librarian regarding subscription databases designed specifically for student research, which may be available through the school or public library. Using these types of resources will help to ensure that students find relevant and appropriate information. Using Internet search engines such as Google can be overwhelming to beginning researchers.

Session 3: Literature Review—Notes

Students need to bring their articles to this session. For large classes, have students highlight relevant information (as described below) and submit the articles for assessment before beginning the session.

Checking Literature Review entries on the same day is best practice, as it gives both you and the student time to plan and address any problems before proceeding. Note that in the finished product this literature review section will be about six paragraphs, so students need to gather enough facts to fit this format.

Session 4: Analysis

Session 5: Original Research

Students should design some form of original research appropriate to their topics, but they do not necessarily have to conduct the experiments or surveys they propose. Depending on the appropriateness of the original research proposals, the time involved, and the resources available, you may prefer to omit the actual research or use it as an extension activity.

Session 6: Results (optional)

Session 7: Conclusion

Session 8: References and Writing Final Draft

Student Assessment / Reflections

• Observe students’ participation in the initial stages of the Research Paper Scaffold and promptly address any errors or misconceptions about the research process.
• Observe students and provide feedback as they complete each section of the Research Paper Scaffold.
• Provide a safe environment where students will want to take risks in exploring ideas. During collaborative work, offer feedback and guidance to those who need encouragement or require assistance in learning cooperation and tolerance.
• Involve students in using the Research Paper Scoring Rubric for final evaluation of the research paper. Go over this rubric during Session 8, before they write their final drafts.
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What is Assignment Scaffolding?

Assignment scaffolding is a way to systematically structure assignments (and course material) to support student learning. Scaffolding breaks down large ideas or tasks into smaller ideas or tasks that build on each other.

For example, writing a research paper involves many different tasks and skills, as well as development of ideas and knowledge. Your learners might need to develop those skills and relevant knowledge over time. Breaking down the assignment into smaller (and perhaps lower-order) tasks allows your learners to gain the skills and knowledge that are required to write the final paper. It also allows faculty the chance to periodically review the student's progress to see if they need more assistance with a particular skill, or whether they need support in developing their knowledge.

Please feel free to reach out if you are interested in scaffolding or revising an assignment. Librarians are happy to help faculty use this rewarding strategy to revise or design research assignments!

Scaffolded Assignment Ideas & Options

Below are some ideas that can be used to scaffold or revise assignments. There are many other strategies and assignments out there but this list can provide a starting place for those interested in using scaffolded assignments.

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The effects of scaffolding in the classroom: support contingency and student independent working time in relation to student achievement, task effort and appreciation of support

• Open access
• Published: 05 June 2015
• Volume 43 , pages 615–641, ( 2015 )

Cite this article

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• Janneke van de Pol 1 , 2 ,
• Monique Volman 1 ,
• Frans Oort 1 &
• Jos Beishuizen 3  

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Teacher scaffolding, in which teachers support students adaptively or contingently , is assumed to be effective. Yet, hardly any evidence from classroom studies exists. With the current experimental classroom study we investigated whether scaffolding affects students’ achievement, task effort, and appreciation of teacher support, when students work in small groups. We investigated both the effects of support quality (i.e., contingency) and the duration of the independent working time of the groups. Thirty social studies teachers of pre-vocational education and 768 students (age 12–15) participated. All teachers taught a five-lesson project on the European Union and the teachers in the scaffolding condition additionally took part in a scaffolding intervention. Low contingent support was more effective in promoting students’ achievement and task effort than high contingent support in situations where independent working time was low (i.e. help was frequent). In situations where independent working time was high (i.e., help was less frequent), high contingent support was more effective than low contingent support in fostering students’ achievement (when correcting for students’ task effort). In addition, higher levels of contingent support resulted in a higher appreciation of support. Scaffolding, thus, is not unequivocally effective; its effectiveness depends, among other things, on the independent working time of the groups and students’ task effort. The present study is one of the first experimental study on scaffolding in an authentic classroom context, including factors that appear to matter in such an authentic context.

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Introduction

The metaphor of scaffolding is derived from construction work where it represents a temporary structure that is used to erect a building. In education, scaffolding refers to support that is tailored to students’ needs. This metaphor is alluring to practice as it appeals to teachers’ imagination (Saban et al. 2007 ). The metaphor, moreover, also appeals to educational scientists: an abundance of research has been performed on scaffolding in the last decade (Van de Pol et al. 2010 ).

Scaffolding is claimed to be effective (e.g., Roehler and Cantlon 1997 ). However, most research on scaffolding in the classroom has been correlational until now. The main question of the current experimental study is: What is the effect of teacher scaffolding on students’ achievement, task effort, and appreciation of support in a classroom setting?

• Scaffolding

Scaffolding represents high quality support (e.g., Seidel and Shavelson 2007 ). The metaphor of scaffolding is derived from mother–child observations and has been applied to many other contexts, such as computer environments (Azevedo and Hadwin 2005 ; Cuevas et al. 2002 ; Feyzi-Behnagh et al. 2013 ; Rasku-Puttonen et al. 2003 ; Simons and Klein 2007 ), tutoring settings (e.g., Chi et al. 2001 ) and classroom settings (e.g., Mercer and Fisher 1992 ; Roll et al. 2012 ). Scaffolding is closely related to the socio-cultural theory of Vygotsky ( 1978 ) and especially to the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). The ZPD is constructed through collaborative interaction, mediated by verbal interaction. Student’s current or actual understanding is developed in these interactions towards their potential understanding. Scaffolding can be seen as the support a teacher offers to move the student toward his/her potential understanding (Wood et al. 1976 ).

More specifically, scaffolding refers to support that is contingent , faded , and aimed at the transfer of responsibility for a task or learning (Van de Pol et al. 2010 ). Contingent support (Wood et al. 1978 ) represents support that is tailored to a student’s understanding. Via fading, i.e., decreasing support, the responsibility for learning can be transferred which is the aim of scaffolding. However, this transfer is probably more effective when implemented contingently. Because contingency is a necessary condition for scaffolding, we focus on this crucial aspect.

Wood et al. ( 1978 ) further specified the concept of contingency by focusing on the degree of control that support exerts. They labelled support as ‘contingent’ when either the tutor increased the degree of control in reaction to student failure or decreased the degree of control in reaction to student success. This is called the contingent shift principle . This specification of contingency shows that the degree of control per se does not determine whether contingent teaching or scaffolding takes place or not. It is the tailored adaptation to a student’s understanding that determines contingency. Most studies on scaffolding did not use such a dynamic operationalization of scaffolding but merely focused on the teachers’ behaviour only.

Scaffolding and achievement

The way teachers interact with students affects students’ achievement (Praetorius et al. 2012 ). Scaffolding and more specifically contingent support represents intervening in such a way that the learner can succeed at the task (Mattanah et al. 2005 ). Contingent support continually provides learners with problems of controlled complexity; it makes the task manageable at any time (Wood and Wood 1996 ).

Stone noted that it is unclear how or why contingent support may work (Stone 1998a , b ). And until now the question ‘What are the mechanisms of contingent support?’ has still not been answered (Van de Pol et al. 2010 ). However, some suggestions have been made in the literature and three elements seem to play a role: (1) the level of cognitive processing; deep versus superficial processing of information, (2) making connections to existing mental models in long term memory, and (3) available cognitive resources. If the level of control is too high for a student (i.e., the support is non-contingent as too much help is given), superficial processing of the information is assumed. The student is not challenged to actively process the information and therefore does not actively make connections with existing knowledge or an existing mental model in the long term memory (e.g., Wittwer and Renkl 2008 ; Wittwer et al. 2010 ). In addition, it is assumed that attending to redundant information (information that is already known) “might prevent learners from processing more elaborate information and, thus, from engaging in more meaningful activities that directly foster learning cf. Kalyuga 2007 ; McNamara and Kintsch 1996 ; Wittwer and Renkl 2008 ; Wannarka and Ruhl 2008 ).” (Wittwer et al. 2010 , p. 74).

If the level of control is too low for a student (i.e., the support is non-contingent as too little help is given) deep processing cannot take place. The student cannot make connections with his/her existing knowledge. The cognitive load of processing the information is too high (Wittwer et al. 2010 ).

If the level of control fits the students’ understanding, the student has sufficient cognitive resources to actively process the information provided and is able to make connections between the new information and the existing knowledge in the long-term memory. “If explanations are tailored to a particular learner, they are more likely to contribute to a deep understanding, because then they facilitate the construction of a coherent mental representation of the information conveyed (a so-called situation model; see, e.g., Otero and Graesser 2001 )” (Wittwer et al. 2010 , p. 74). Only when support is adapted to a student’s understanding, connections between new information and information already stored in long-term memory are fostered (Webb and Mastergeorge 2003 ).

A body of research showed that parental scaffolding was associated with success on different sorts of outcomes such as self-regulated learning (Mattanah et al. 2005 ), block-building and puzzle construction tasks (Fidalgo and Pereira 2005 ; Wood and Middleton 1975 ) and long-division math homework (Pino-Pasternak et al. 2010 ). Pino-Pasternak et al. ( 2010 ) stressed that contingency was found to uniquely predict the children’s performance, also when taking into account pre-test measurements and other characteristics such as parenting style.

Yet, in the current study we focused on teacher scaffolding, in contrast to parental scaffolding. An essential difference between teacher scaffolding and parental scaffolding is that in the latter case, the parent knows his/her child better than a teacher knows his/her students which might facilitate the adaptation of the support. Additionally, the studies of parental scaffolding mentioned above took place in one-to-one situations which are not comparable to classroom situations where one teacher has to deal with about 30 students at a time (Davis and Miyake 2004 ).

Experimental studies on the effects of teacher scaffolding in a classroom setting are rare (cf. Kim and Hannafin 2011 ; Van de Pol et al. 2010 ). The only face-to-face, nonparental scaffolding studies using an experimental design are (one-to-one) tutoring studies with structured and/or hands-on tasks (e.g., Murphy and Messer 2000 ). The results of these tutoring studies are similar to the results of the parental scaffolding studies; contingent support generally leads to improved student performances. A non-experimental micro-level study that investigated the relation between different patterns of contingency (e.g., increased control upon poor student understanding and decreased control upon good student understanding) in a classroom setting is the study of Van de Pol and Elbers ( 2013 ). They found that contingent support was mainly related to increased student understanding when the initial student understanding was poor. Previous research—albeit mostly in out of classroom contexts—shows contingent support is related to students’ improved student achievement.

Scaffolding, task effort and appreciation of support

Most studies on contingent support have used students’ achievement as an outcome measure. Yet, other outcomes are important for students’ learning and well-being as well. One important factor in students’ success is task effort. Numerous studies have demonstrated that students’ task effort affects their achievement (Fredricks et al. 2004 ). Task effort refers to students’ effort, attention and persistence in the classroom (Fredricks et al. 2004 ; Hughes et al. 2008 ). Task effort is malleable and context-specific and the quality of teacher support, e.g., in terms of contingency, can affect task effort (Fredricks et al. 2004 ). If the contingent shift principle is applied, a tutor’s support is always responsive to the student’s understanding which in turn is hypothesized to stimulate student’s task effort; the tutor keeps the task challenging but manageable: “The child never succeeds too easily nor fails too often” (Wood et al. 1978 , p. 144). When support is contingent, the student knows which steps to take and how to proceed independently. When support is non-contingent, students often withdraw from the task as it is beyond or beneath their reach causing respectively frustration or boredom (Wertsch 1979 ). Hardly any empirical research exists on whether and how contingent support affects task effort. The only study that we encountered was the study of Chiu ( 2004 ) in which a positive relation was found between support in which the teacher first evaluated students’ understanding (assuming that this promoted contingency) and student’s task effort.

Another important factor in students’ success is students’ appreciation of support. Students’ appreciation of support provided (e.g., because they feel that they are being taken seriously or because they feel the support was enjoyable or pleasant) may have long-term implications as support that is appreciated might encourage students to engage in further learning (Pratt and Savoy-Levine 1998 ). Wood ( 1988 ), using informal observations, reports that students who experienced contingent support seemed more positive towards their tutors. Pratt and Savoy-Levine ( 1998 ) were the first (and, to our knowledge, only) researchers who tested this hypothesis more systematically. They investigated the effects of contingent support on students’ mathematical skills by conducting an experiment with several conditions: a full contingent (all control levels), moderate contingent (several but not all control levels) and non-contingent condition (only high-control levels) tutoring condition. Students in the full and moderate contingent conditions reported less negative feelings than students in the non-contingent condition about the tutoring session. Summarising, little is known about the effects of contingent support on students’ task effort and appreciation of support.

Support contingency and independent working time in scaffolding small-group work

Quite some research exists on small-group work but the teacher’s role is still receiving relatively little attention (Webb 2009 ; Webb et al. 2006 ). Studies that focused on the teacher’s role mainly studied how collaborative group work could be stimulated. Mercer and Littleton ( 2007 ) for example focused on how teachers could stimulate high-quality discussions in small groups (called exploratory talk). Little attention has been paid to how teachers can provide high quality contingent support to students—who work in groups—with regard to the subject-matter.

Some studies investigated effects of support types (e.g., process support versus content support) on students’ learning (e.g., Dekker and Elshout-Mohr 2004 ). However, it may not be the type of support that matters, but the quality of the support (e.g., in terms of contingency). Diagnosing or evaluating students’ understanding enables contingency and this is effective. Chiu ( 2004 ) for example found that when supporting small groups with the subject-matter, evaluating students’ understanding before giving support was the key factor in how effective the support was. Although evaluation is not necessarily the same as contingency, it most probably facilitates contingency. To be able to be contingent, a teacher needs to evaluate or diagnose students’ understanding first. The present study is one of the first study in an authentic classroom context studying small-group learning that measures the actual contingency of support.

In such an authentic classroom context, not only the support quality (here, in terms of contingency) is relevant; the duration of the groups’ independent working time, should also be taken into account. It seems reasonable to assume that scaffolded or contingent support takes more time than non-scaffolded support, given that diagnosing students’ understanding first before providing support is necessary to be able to give contingent support. This makes the scaffolding process time-consuming which may result in longer periods of independent small-group work. Constructivist learning theories assume that active and independent knowledge construction promotes students’ learning (e.g., Duffy and Cunningham 1996 ). In line with this assumption some authors suggest that groups of students should be left alone working for considerable amounts of time as frequent intervention might disturb the learning process (e.g., Cohen 1994 ). Other studies, however, found that students benefit in classrooms with a lot of individual attention (Blatchford et al. 2007 ; Brühwiler and Blatchford 2007 ). Although it is not known to what extent students should work independently, it is now generally agreed that students at least need some support and guidance during the learning process and that minimal guidance does not work (e.g., Kirschner et al. 2006 ). Guidance might not only be needed to help students with the task at hand, it might also help students to stay on-task. Wannarka and Ruhl ( 2008 ) for example found that, compared to an individual seating arrangement, students who are seated in small-groups are more easily distracted. Taking both the support quality and the independent working time into account enables us to investigate the separate and joint effects of these factors. It is vital to, in addition to contingency, also include independent working time, as the positive effects of contingency might be cancelled out by (possible) negative effects of independent working time in an authentic context as ours.

The present study

In the present study we investigated the effects of scaffolding on pre-vocational students’ achievement, task effort, and appreciation of support. As opposed to previous studies, we used open-ended tasks, a real-life classroom situation and a relatively large sample size. Thirty social studies teachers and 768 students participated in this study. Seventeen teachers participated in a scaffolding intervention programme (the scaffolding condition) and 13 teachers did not (the nonscaffolding condition). We investigated the separate and joint effects of support contingency and independent working time on students’ achievement, task effort and appreciation of support using a premeasurement and a postmeasurement.

In a manipulation check, we first checked whether the increase in contingency from premeasurement to postmeasurement was higher in the scaffolding condition than in the nonscaffolding condition. Footnote 1 In addition, we tested whether the increase in independent working time per group was higher in the scaffolding condition than in the nonscaffolding condition.

With regard to students’ achievement , we hypothesized that: students’ achievement (measured with a multiple choice test and a knowledge assignment) increases more with high levels of contingent support compared to low levels of contingent support. Because the positive effects of contingency might be ruled out by the (negative) effects of independent working time, we added the latter variable in the analyses and explored whether the effect of contingency depended on the amount of independent working time. In addition, as the relation between task effort and achievement is established (as students’ task effort is known to affect achievement, Fredricks et al. 2004 ), we additionally investigated to what extent contingency, in combination with independent working time, affected students’ achievement when controlling for task effort.

Based on the lack of previous research with regard to students’ task effort and appreciation of support, we did not formulate hypotheses regarding these outcome variables. The effects of contingency and independent working time on students’ task effort and appreciation of support was explored.

Participants

The participating schools were recruited by distributing a call in the researchers’ network and in online teacher communities. The teachers were informed that the study encompassed the conduction of a five-lesson project on the European Union (EU) and that the researchers would focus on students´ learning in small groups. To arrive at random allocation to conditions, each school was alternately allocated to the scaffolding or nonscaffolding condition based on the moment of confirmation. That is, the first school that confirmed participation was allocated to the scaffolding condition, the second school to the non-scaffolding condition, the third school to the scaffolding condition etcetera. Each school only had teachers from one condition; this was to prevent teachers from different conditions to talk to each other and influence each other.

Thirty teachers from 20 Dutch schools participated in this study; 17 teachers of 11 schools were in the scaffolding condition and 13 teachers of nine schools were in the nonscaffolding condition (never more than three teachers per school). Of the participating teachers, 20 were men and 10 were women. The teachers taught social studies in the 8th grade of pre-vocational education. The average teaching experience of the teachers was 10.4 years. Each teacher participated with one class, so a total of 30 classes participated.

During the project lessons that all teachers taught during the experiment, students worked in small groups. The total number of groups was 184 and the average number of students per group was 4.15. A total of 768 students participated in this study, 455 students in the scaffolding condition and 313 students in the nonscaffolding condition. Of the 768 students, 385 were boys and 383 were girls.

T tests for independent samples showed that the schools and teachers of the scaffolding and nonscaffolding condition were comparable with regard to teachers’ years of experience ( t (28): .90, p  = .38), teachers’ gender ( t (28): .51, p  = .10), teachers’ subject knowledge ( t (24): 1.16, p  = .26), the degree to which the classes were used to doing small-group work ( t (23): −.87, p  = .39), the track of the class ( t (28): .08, p  = .94), class size ( t (28): −1.32, p  = .20), duration of the lessons in minutes ( t (28): −1.18, p  = .25), students’ age ( t (728): −.34, p  = .74), and students’ gender ( t (748): −1.65, p  = .10) (see Table  1 ).

Research design

For this experimental study, we used a between-subjects design. In Table  2 , the timeline of the study can be found.

Project lessons

All teachers taught the same project on the EU for which they received instructions. This project consisted of five lessons in which the students made several open-ended assignments in groups of four (e.g., a poster, a letter about (dis)advantages of the EU etcetera). The teachers taught one project lesson per week. Teachers composed groups while mixing student gender and ability. We used the first and last project lessons for analyses (respectively premeasurement and postmeasurement). In the premeasurement lesson, the students made a brochure about the meaning of the EU for young people in their everyday lives. In the postmeasurement lesson, the students worked on an assignment called ‘Which Word Out’ (Leat 1998 ). Three concepts of a list of concepts on the EU that have much in common had to be selected and thereafter, one concept had to be left out using two reasons. The students were stimulated to collaborate by the nature of the tasks (the students needed each other) and by rules for collaboration that were introduced in all classes (such as make sure everybody understands it, help each other first before you ask the teacher etcetera).

Scaffolding intervention programme

We developed and piloted the scaffolding intervention programme in a previous study (Van de Pol et al. 2012 ) and began after we filmed the first project lesson. The programme consisted successively of: (1) video observation of project lesson 1, (2) one two-hour theoretical session (taught per school), and (3) video observations of project lessons 2–4 each followed by a reflection session of 45 min with the first author in which video fragments of the teachers’ own lessons were watched and reflected upon. Finally, all teachers taught project lesson 5 that was videotaped. This fifth lesson was not part of the scaffolding intervention programme; it served as a postmeasurement.

The first author, who was experienced, taught the programme. The reflection sessions took place individually (teacher + 1st author) and always on the same day as the observation of the project lesson. In the theoretical session, the first author and the teachers: (a) discussed scaffolding theory and the steps of contingent teaching (Van de Pol et al. 2011 ), i.e., diagnostic strategies (step 1), checking the diagnosis (step 2), intervention strategies, (step 3), and checking students’ learning (step 4), (b) watched and analysed video examples of scaffolding, and (c) discussed and prepared the project lessons. In the subsequent four project lessons, the teachers implemented the steps of contingent teaching cumulatively.

Support quality: contingent teaching

We selected all interactions a teacher had with a small group of students about the subject-matter for analyses (i.e., interaction fragments). An interaction fragment started when the teacher approached a group and ended when the teacher left. Each interaction fragment thus consisted of a variable number of teacher and student turns, Footnote 2 depending on how long the teacher stayed with a certain group. In the premeasurement and postmeasurement respectively, the teachers in the scaffolding condition had 454 and 251 fragments and the teachers in the nonscaffolding condition had 368 and 295 fragments. We used a random selection of two interaction fragments Footnote 3 of the premeasurement and two interaction fragments of the postmeasurement per teacher for analyses and we transcribed these interaction fragments. Because we selected the interaction fragments randomly, two interaction fragments of a certain teacher’s lesson could, but must not be with the same group of students. This selection resulted in 108 interaction fragments consisting of 4073 turns (teacher + student turns).

The unit of analyses for measuring contingency was a teacher turn, a student turn, and the subsequent teacher turn (i.e., a three-turn-sequence, for coded examples see Tables  3 , 4 , 5 and 6 ). To establish the contingency of each of unit, we used the contingent shift framework (Van de Pol et al. 2012 ; based on Wood et al. 1978 ). If a teacher used more control after a student’s demonstration of poor understanding and less control after a student’s demonstration of good understanding, we labelled the support contingent. To be able to apply this framework we first coded all teacher turns and all student turns as follows.

First, we coded all teacher turns in terms of the degree of control ranging from zero to five. See Tables  3 , 4 , 5 and 6 for coded examples. Zero represented no control (i.e., the teacher is not with the group), one represented the lowest level of control (i.e., the teacher provides no new lesson content, elicits an elaborate response, and asks a broad and open question), two represented low control (i.e., the teacher provides no new content, elicits an elaborate response, mostly an elaboration or explanation of something by asking open questions that are slightly more detailed than level one questions), three represented medium control (i.e., the teacher provides no new content and elicits a short response, e.g., yes/no), four represented a high level of control (i.e., the teacher provides new content, elicits a response, and gives a hint or asks a suggestive question), and five represented high control (e.g., providing the answer). Control refers to the degree of regulation a teacher exercises in his/her support. Two researchers coded twenty percent of the data and the interrater reliability was substantial (Krippendorff’s Alpha = .71; Krippendorff 2004 ).

Second, we coded the student’s understanding demonstrated in each turn into one of the following categories: miscellaneous, no understanding can be determined, poor/no understanding, partial understanding, and good understanding (cf. Nathan and Kim 2009 ; Pino-Pasternak et al. 2010 ; see Tables  3 , 4 , 5 and 6 for an example). Two researchers coded twenty percent of the data and the interrater reliability was satisfactory (Krippendorff’s Alpha = .69). The contingency score was the percentage contingent three-turn-sequences relative to the total number of three-turn sequences per teacher per measurement occasion. This means that each class had a certain contingency score; that is, the contingency score for all students of a particular class was the same. The first author, who knew which teacher was in which condition, coded the data. We prevented bias by coding in separate rounds: first, we coded all teacher turns with regard to the degree of control; second, we coded all student turns with regard to their understanding. And only then we applied the predetermined contingency rules to all three-turn-sequences.

Independent working time

We determined the average duration (in seconds) of independent working time per group per measurement occasion (T0 and T1). We did not take short whole-class instructions (≤2 min) into account and we included this in the independent working time for each group. If the teacher provided whole-class instructions that were longer than 2 min, we started counting again after that instruction had finished and the duration of the whole-class instruction was thus not included in the independent working time for each group.

• Task effort

We measured students’ task effort in class with a questionnaire consisting of 5 items (cf. Boersma et al. 2009 ; De Bruijn et al. 2005 ). We used a five-point likert scale ranging from ‘I don’t agree at all’ to ‘I totally agree’. The internal consistency was high: the value of Cronbach’s α (Cronbach 1951 ) was .92. Kline ( 1999 ) indicated a cut-off point of .70/.80). An example item of this questionnaire is: “I worked hard on this task”.

Appreciation of support

We measured students’ appreciation of the support received with a questionnaire consisting of 3 items (cf. Boersma et al. 2009 ; De Bruijn et al. 2005 ). We used a five-point likert scale ranging from ‘I don’t agree at all’ to ‘I totally agree’. The internal consistency was high: the value of Cronbach’s α was .90. An example item of this questionnaire is: “I liked the way the teacher helped me and my group”.

Achievement: multiple choice test

We measured students’ achievement with a test that consisted of 17 multiple choice questions (each with four possible answers). We constructed the questions. An example of a question is: “The main reason for the collaboration between countries after World War II was: (a) to be able to compete more with other countries, (b) to be able to transport goods, people and services across borders freely, (c) to collaborate with regard to economic and trade matters, or (d) to be able to monitor the weapons industry. The item difficulty was sufficient as all p-values (i.e., the percentage of students that correctly answered the item) of the items were between .31 and .87 (Haladyna 1999 ). Additionally, the items were good in terms of the item discrimination (correlation between the item score and the total test score) as the mean item correlation was .33. The lowest correlation was not lower than .21; the threshold is .20 (Haladyna 1999 ). We used the number of questions answered correctly as a score in the analyses with a minimum score of 0 and a maximum score of 17. The internal consistency was high: the value of Cronbach’s α was .79.

Achievement: knowledge assignment

We additionally measured students’ achievement with a knowledge assignment. The knowledge assignment consisted of three series of three concepts (e.g., EU, European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), and European Economic Community (ECC)). The students were asked to leave out one concept and give one reason for leaving this concept out. We developed a coding scheme to code the accuracy and quality of the reasons. Each reason was awarded zero, one, or two points. We awarded zero points when the reason was inaccurate or based only on linguistic properties of the concepts (e.g., two of the three concepts contain the word ‘European’). We awarded one point when the reason was accurate but used only peripheral characteristics of the concepts (e.g., one concept is left out because the other two concepts are each other’s opposites). We awarded two points when the reason was accurate and focused on the meaning of the concepts (e.g., ECSC can be left out because they only focused on regulating the coal and steel production and the other two (EU and ECC) had broader goals that related to the economy in general). The minimum score of the knowledge assignment was 0 and the maximum score was 6. Two researchers coded over 10 % of the data and the interrater reliability was substantial (Krippendorff’s Alpha = .83).

For our analyses, we used IBM’s Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22.

Data screening

In our predictor variables, we only found seven missing values which we handled through the expectation–maximization algorithm. For the knowledge assignment and multiple choice test we coded missing questions as zero which meant that the answer was considered false, which is the usual procedure in school as well (this was per case never more than eight percent). For the task effort and appreciation of support questionnaire, we computed the mean scores per measurement occasion and per subscale only over the number of questions that was filled out. If a student missed all measurement occasions or if a student only completed the questionnaire or one of the knowledge tests at one single measurement occasion, we removed the case (N = 18) which made the total number of students 750 (445 in the scaffolding condition; 305 in the nonscaffolding condition).

Manipulation check

We used a repeated-measures ANOVA with condition as between groups variable, measurement occasion as within groups variable and contingency or mean independent working time as dependent variable to check the effect of the intervention on teachers’ contingency and the independent working time per group. If both the level of contingency and the independent working time appear to differ systematically between conditions over measurement occasions, we will not use ‘condition’ as an independent variable in subsequent analyses because there is more than one systematic difference between conditions. Instead, we will use the variables ‘contingency’ and ‘independent working time’ to be able to investigate the separate effects of these variables on students’ achievement, task effort, and appreciation of support.

Effects of scaffolding

To test our hypothesis about the effect of contingency on achievement and explore the effects of contingency on students’ task effort and appreciation of support, we used multilevel modelling, as the data had a nested structure (measurement occasions within students, within groups, within classes, within schools). To facilitate the interpretation of the regression coefficients, we transformed the scores of all continuous variables into z-scores (mean of zero and standard deviation of 1). We treated measurement occasions (level 1) as nested within students (level 2), students as nested within groups (level 3), groups as nested within teachers/classes (level 4) and teachers/classes as nested within schools (level 5). In comparing null models (with no predictor variables) with a variable number of levels for all dependent variables, we found that the school level (level 5) was not contributing significantly to the variance found and we therefore omitted it as a level. For the multiple choice test only, the group-level was not contributing significantly to the variance found and we therefore omitted it as a level.

We fitted four-level models fitted for each of the dependent variables separately. The independent variables in the analyses were measurement occasion (premeasurement = 0; postmeasurement = 1), contingency, and mean independent working time. We included task effort as a covariate in a separate analyses regarding achievement (multiple-choice test and knowledge assignment) as task effort is known to affect achievement (Fredricks et al. 2004 ). For each dependent variable, the model in which the intercept, and effects for teachers/classes and groups were considered random, with unrestricted covariance structure, gave the best fit and was thus used. We included the main effects of each of the independent variables and all interactions (i.e., the two-way interactions between measurement occasion and contingency, measurement occasion and independent working time, and contingency and independent working time and the three-way interaction between measurement occasion, contingency and independent working time). To test our hypothesis regarding achievement, we were specifically interested in the interaction between occasion and contingency. To check whether differences in independent working time played a role in whether contingency affected achievement, we were additionally interested in the three-way interaction between occasion, contingency, and independent working time. Finally, as we wanted to control for task effort, we included task effort as a covariate in a separate analysis.

To explore the effects of contingency on students’ task effort and appreciation of support, we were also firstly interested in the interaction effect between occasion and contingency. Secondly, we also checked the role of independent working time by looking at the three-way interaction between occasion, contingency, and independent working time.

As an indication of effect size, we reported the partial squared eta (ηp 2 ) for the manipulation check of contingency and independent working time and the explained variance the multilevel analyses (squared correlation between the students’ true scores and the estimated scores). We report only effect sizes for significant effects.

First, we verified whether the degree of the teachers’ contingency increased more from premeasurement to postmeasurement in the scaffolding condition than in the nonscaffolding condition (see Table  7 ).

The results of the repeated-measures ANOVA showed that there was a significant interaction effect of condition and measurement occasion on teachers’ contingency ( F (1,28) = 17.72, p  = .00) (Fig.  1 ). The effect size can be considered large; ηp 2 was .39 (Cohen 1992 ). The degree of contingency almost doubled in the scaffolding condition (from about 50 % to about 80 %) whereas this was not the case for the nonscaffolding condition where the degree of contingency stayed between 30 and 40 %.

Average percentage contingency for the teachers of each condition compared between measurement occasions

Second, we verified whether the intervention also resulted in longer periods of independent working time for small groups, an effect that was not necessarily aimed for with the intervention (see Table  7 ). The results of the repeated-measures ANOVA showed that there was a significant interaction effect of condition and measurement occasion on the average independent working time for small groups ( F (1,22) = 11.78, p  = .00) (Fig.  2 ). The effect size can be considered large; ηp 2 was .35.

Average independent working time for the groups of students of each condition compared between measurement occasions

The independent group working time almost doubled in the experimental condition from premeasurement to postmeasurement. In the scaffolding condition, each group worked independently for about 5 min on average at the premeasurement before the teacher came for support. At the postmeasurement, the duration increased to about 10 min. The average independent group working time stayed stable in the nonscaffolding condition, around 3.7 min on average.

Students’ achievement

Multiple choice test.

Only the main effect of occasion on students’ score on the multiple choice test was significant (Table  8 ). Students’ scores on the test were higher at the postmeasurement than at the premeasurement. The interaction between occasion and contingency was not significant. Our hypothesis could therefore not be confirmed based on the outcomes of the multiple choice test.

We additionally investigated whether differences in independent working time played a role in whether contingency affected achievement by looking at the three-way interaction between occasion, contingency and independent working time. This three-way interaction, however, was not significant (Table  8 ).

Finally, we additionally investigated to what extent contingency, in combination with independent working time affected students’ achievement when controlling for task effort. When taking task effort into account, the three-way interaction between occasion, contingency and independent working time was significant; medium effect size of R 2  = .30; Cohen, 1992. (Table  8 ; Fig.  3 ).

Visual representation of the three-way interaction effect of occasion, contingency, and independent working time (IWT) on the scores of the multiple choice test when controlling for task effort

When the independent working time was short, low levels of contingency resulted in an increase in scores on the multiple choice test whereas when the independent working time was long, high levels of contingency resulted in an increase in scores.

Knowledge assignment

Again, only the main effect of occasion on students’ score on the knowledge assignment was significant (Table  9 ). Students’ scores on the knowledge assignment were higher at the postmeasurement than at the premeasurement. The interaction between occasion and contingency was not significant. Our hypothesis could therefore not be confirmed based on the outcomes of the knowledge assignment.

We additionally investigated whether differences in independent working time played a role in whether contingency affected achievement by looking at the three-way interaction between occasion, contingency and independent working time. This three-way interaction was not significant (Table  9 ). In addition, when adding task effort as a covariate, the three-way-interaction remained non-significant (Table  9 ).

Students’ task effort

The main effect of occasion on students’ task effort was significant (Table  10 ); students were less on-task at the postmeasurement than at the premeasurement.

The two-way interaction between occasion and contingency was not significant, but the three-way interaction of occasion, contingency, and independent working time on students’ task effort was significant (small effect size of R 2  = .04; Cohen 1992 ). The effects of contingency were found to be different for short and long periods of independent working time (see Table  10 ; Fig.  4 ).

Visual representation of the three-way interaction effect of occasion, contingency, and independent working time on task effort

When the independent working time was short, low levels of contingency resulted in an increase in task effort. When the independent working time was long, both high levels and low levels of contingency resulted in a decrease of task effort. In this case (i.e., high levels of independent working time), the decrease in task effort was smaller with high levels of contingency than with low levels of contingency.

Students’ appreciation of support

For students’ appreciation of support, only the main effect of contingency was significant (small effect size of R 2  = .04; Cohen 1992 ). Regardless of the measurement occasion or the independent working time, higher levels of contingency were related to higher appreciation of support (Table  11 ).

With the current study, we sought to advance our understanding of the effects of scaffolding on students’ achievement, task effort, and appreciation of support. We took both the support contingency and the independent working time into account to identify the effects of scaffolding in an authentic classroom situation. This study is one of few studies on classroom scaffolding with an experimental design. With this study, we made four contributions to the current knowledge base of classroom scaffolding.

First, our manipulation check showed that teachers were able to increase the degree of contingency in their support. This increase was accompanied by an increase of the independent working time for the groups.

Second, when controlling for task effort, low contingent support only resulted in improved achievement when students worked independently for short periods of time whereas high contingent support only resulted in improved achievement students worked independently for long periods of time.

Third, low contingent support resulted in an increase of task effort when students worked for short periods of time only; high contingent support never resulted in an increase of task effort but slightly prevented loss in task effort when students worked independently for long periods of time.

Fourth, appreciation of support was related to higher levels of contingency. These four contributions are elaborated below.

First, teachers who participated in the scaffolding programme increased the contingency of their support more than teachers who did not participate in this programme. In previous research, this has not always been the case. In a study of Bliss et al. ( 1996 ) for example, teachers—who participated in a professional development programme on scaffolding—kept struggling with the application of scaffolding in their classrooms. An unintended effect of our programme (that is, we did not focus on this aspect in our programme) was that in the classrooms of teachers who learned to scaffold, the independent working time for small groups also increased. This is probably due to the fact that high contingent support—for which diagnosing students’ understanding first before providing support is necessary—takes longer than low contingent support. As transferring the responsibility for a task to the learner is a main goal of scaffolding, this unintended result may actually fit well with the idea of scaffolding. However, this is only the case when responsibility for the task is gradually transferred to the students and fading of help is a gradual process. A study design with more than two time points should be used to establish whether teachers transfer responsibility and fade their help gradually and how this is related to student outcome variables.

Second, when controlling for task effort, low contingent support only resulted in improved achievement when students worked independently for short periods of time whereas high contingent support only resulted in improved achievement when students worked independently for long periods of time. Different from what we expected, high contingent support was not more effective than low contingent support in all situations. Low contingent support was more effective than high contingent support when given frequently (i.e., with short independent working time). This might be explained by the fact that non-contingent support results in superficial processing and hampers constructing a coherent mental model (e.g., Wannarka and Ruhl 2008 ). Therefore, students do not have a deep understanding of the subject-matter and keep needing help. High contingent support was more effective than low contingent support when it was given less frequently (i.e., with long periods of independent working time). It might be the case that, as suggested by several authors, with high contingent support students have sufficient resources to actively process the information provided and can make connections between the new information and existing knowledge in the long-term memory (e.g., Wittwer et al. 2010 ). This leads to a deeper understanding and a more coherent mental model which might be represented by the higher increase in achievement scores.

We would like to stress that this finding was only true when students’ task effort was controlled for. When task effort was not included as a covariate, the three-way-interaction (between occasion, contingency, and independent working time) was not significant. This means that students’ task effort partly determines whether contingent support is effective or not. This is supported by previous research that shows that task effort affects achievement (Fredricks et al. 2004 ). It might be interesting for future research to further investigate the mutual relationships between contingency, independent working time, task effort and achievement. Previous studies showed more straightforward positive effects of scaffolding on students’ achievement (Murphy and Messer 2000 ; Pino-Pasternak et al. 2010 ). Yet, these studies were conducted in lab-settings in which the independent working time and task effort are less crucial. Our findings provide less straightforward but more ecologically valid effects of scaffolding. Yet, more research in authentic settings is needed to further determine the effects of scaffolding in the classroom.

Third, in most cases, students’ task effort decreased from premeasurement to postmeasurement which is congruent with what is found in other studies (e.g., Gottfried et al. 2001 ; Stoel et al. 2003 ). Students’ task effort, however, increased when low contingent support was given frequently. In those situations, students’ task effort may have increased because of constant teacher reinforcements, which is known to foster students’ task effort (Axelrod and Zank 2012 ; Bicard et al. 2012 ). Yet, it is also important that students learn to put effort in working on tasks without frequent teacher reinforcements as teachers do not always have time to constantly reinforce students. Although high contingent support generally resulted in a decrease of task effort, high contingent support resulted in a smaller loss in task effort than low contingent support, when the independent working time was long. A possible explanation for the smaller decrease in task effort with infrequent high contingent support might be that when support is contingent, students know better what steps to take in subsequent independent working. Because they know better what to do, they may be less easily distracted than students who received low contingent support. Yet, when the aim is to increase student task effort, frequent low contingent support seemed most beneficial.

Fourth, contingency was positively related to students’ appreciation of support. This finding is in line with the informal observations of Wood ( 1988 ) and the findings of Pratt and Savoy-Levine ( 1998 ). Contingent support involves diagnosing students’ understanding and building upon that understanding. Students might therefore appreciate contingent support more because they may feel taken seriously and feel that their ideas are respected. Yet, future, more qualitative research is needed to further explore this hypothesis.

Limitations

A first limitation of the study is that the intervention can be considered relatively short; about 8 weeks whereas for example Slavin ( 2008 ) advised interventions to be at least 12 weeks. Both teachers and students might need more time to adjust to changes in interaction. Future research could investigate whether conducting scaffolding for a longer time span has different effects on students’ behaviour, appreciation and achievement.

Furthermore, we only investigated the effects of support of the subject-matter, that is, cognitive scaffolding. Yet, metacognitive activities play an important role in group work as well and these metacognitive skills might need explicit scaffolding as well (cf. Askell-Williams et al. 2012 ; Molenaar et al. 2011 ). Future classroom research should therefore jointly investigate the scaffolding of students’ cognitive and metacognitive activities.

Finally, we only investigated the linear effects of contingency and independent working time on students’ achievement, task effort and appreciation of support. Yet, it would be interesting to test for non-linear effects in future research. That is, especially regarding independent working time, there might be an optimum in promoting students’ achievement, task effort and perhaps appreciation of support. Very short periods of independent working might disturb the students’ learning process whereas chances of getting stuck may increase with very lengthy periods of independent working time.

Implications

The current study has several practical and scientific implications. First, the scaffolding intervention seemed to have promoted teachers’ degree of contingent support; this intervention could thus facilitate future scaffolding research. Although scaffolding appeals to teachers’ imagination (Saban et al. 2007 ), it is not something most teachers naturally do (Van de Pol et al. 2011 ). Therefore, finding effective ways of promoting teachers’ scaffolding is crucial in order to be able to study effects of scaffolding.

Second, the scaffolding intervention programme is also useful for teacher education or professional development programs. The intervention programme provides a step by step model on how to learn to scaffold, i.e., the model of contingent teaching.

Third, this study contributed to our understanding of the circumstances in which low or high contingent support is beneficial. If teachers have the opportunity to provide frequent support, low contingent support appeared more effective in promoting students’ achievement and task effort than high contingent support. Yet, if teachers do not have the opportunity to provide support often, e.g., due to a full classroom, high contingent support appeared more effective than low contingent support in fostering students’ achievement (when correcting for task effort). The exact role of students’ task effort in this process needs to be considered more carefully in future research.

To increase the efficiency of scaffolding support, students could for example be stimulated to, before they ask for help, think first about their own understanding. What is it they do not understand and what do they already know about the topic? When students are better able to reflect on their own understanding, they might be able to explain their understanding better to the teacher so less time needs to be spent on the diagnostic phase. Yet, a certain degree of diagnostic activities might still be crucial as it may convey a message of interest to the students. In addition, because students have difficulties at gauging their own understanding (Dunning et al. 2004 ), teachers’ active diagnostic behaviour is needed.

The current large-scaled classroom study revealed some important theoretical and practical issues. When teachers are taught how to scaffold, their degree of contingency increased but the independent working time for students increased as well. Scaffolding was not unequivocally effective; its effectiveness depends, among other things, on the independent working time and students’ task effort. This study shows that such factors are important to include in scaffolding studies that take place in authentic classroom settings.

This was a check on the implementation fidelity only. A more elaborate investigation into the effects of the intervention on teachers’ classroom practices is reported elsewhere (Van de Pol et al. 2014 ).

We use the term turn to indicate a complete utterance by a student or a teacher until another student or the teacher says something.

We did not choose one but two interaction fragments per teacher get a more representative impression of the degree of contingency the teacher exhibited. Given that coding contingency is so time-consuming, it was not feasible to choose more than two interaction fragments per teacher per measurement occasion.

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van de Pol, J., Volman, M., Oort, F. et al. The effects of scaffolding in the classroom: support contingency and student independent working time in relation to student achievement, task effort and appreciation of support. Instr Sci 43 , 615–641 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-015-9351-z

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• Scaffolding: Using Frequency and Sequencing Intentionally

With your capstone assignment in place, you’ll be able to build "backwards" through the term, ensuring that each one of the preceding assignments gives students the right opportunities to acquire and/or practice the skills and competencies they will need in order to tackle the course's grand finale. To be sure,  this kind of scaffolding give students the intellectual skills they need to take on the highly synthetic, creative tasks associated with capstone assignments. More than just that, though, it also allows them to develop these skills step-by-step and gives them time to reflect on their development—which in turn gives them more awareness of, and confidence in, applying these skills to "bigger" challenges.  

Scaffolding is important for both "traditional" and "creative" assignments. In the case of traditional assignments (like academic papers), students benefit primarily from the sequential accumulation of analytical skills. In an Expos course, for instance, a Unit 1 assignment often asks students to make an analytical argument about a single source, a request which might not be 100% clear to students when they first encounter the prompt. Over the following few weeks, though, students will move from learning strategies for active reading to ways to develop analytical questions about a source to how analytical questions are answered by a thesis to how a thesis is an arguable claim supported by evidence to how a thesis supported by evidence and analysis is an analytical argument. In that way, each skill learned in the unit requires the previously learned skills and paves the way for the next, higher-order skill that will culminate in the essay assignment students were introduced from the start.

In the case of creative projects, it may be necessary to provide scaffolding not only in analytical skills, but also in the basic tools and genre conventions of the medium within which they are working. Just as students often complete lower-stakes writing assignments in advance of an essay or research paper, students who have been assigned a creative project need to practice working with multimedia—not just on the production side, but in terms of making arguments, citing sources, and developing a voice, well before they attempt a final project. Small-scale multimedia work can, for example, be evaluated on a complete/incomplete basis, since it's meant to serve as practice. Then, when it comes time to attempt the end-of-semester video, or website launch, or virtual exhibit, you'll find that the overall level of student work is high enough that you'll be able to grade this non-traditional work using many, if not most, of the very same criteria you'd use to evaluate traditional papers.

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What is scaffolding?

Educational scaffolding refers to the process of providing temporary supports for learners to guide them towards achieving a goal or completing a complex task. 

Scaffolding can take many forms. One type of scaffolding is called process scaffolding, where a complex task, such as a research paper is broken down into smaller, more manageable parts. 

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This page is modified from Columbia College, Vancouver's Designing Research Assignments Libguide.  With thanks to Krystyna Nowak.  Portions of this page were modified from Lehigh University Libraries'  Information Literacy in ENG2: An Instructor Guide  and Modesto Junior College's Designing Research Assignments Guide . 

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Answered By: Trenia Napier Last Updated: Apr 21, 2023     Views: 174

Chunking a research paper into its constituent parts (e.g., topic proposal, annotated bibliography, draft submissions, etc.) using distinct activities and feedback can model the research process for students and help them to master difficult or abstract research concepts and methods. 

The results often will be stronger assignments and deeper interactions with the source content. See  How To Scaffold a Research Assignment  (and an alternative tutorial on this process ).

Adapted from SUNY Empire State College's Assignment Design Resources , Oberlin College Libraries' Scaffolding a Research Project , and University of Toronto Scarborough's Centre for Teaching and Learning Assignment Scaffolding Example .

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Scaffolding Research Assignments

Research papers can be a great way to assess the learning of many course outcomes, and by breaking the assignment down into weekly tasks, you can set students up for success! Here is a sample schedule of assignments for a research paper based on Carol Kuhlthau’s Guided Inquiry Design Framework:

• Research materials : Champlain Library  Subject Guides
• Research materials : Continue working with the general references within the Champlain Library  Subject Guides
• Assignment : Have students post their topic in a discussion forum or have them submit their topic as an assignment for review.
• Research materials : Champlain Library  Subject Guides ,  General Databases , and  Books & eBooks .
• Assignment : Have students submit a list of 3-5 general references about their topic.
• Research materials : Same as in  Prefocus Exploration
• Assignment : Have students submit their thesis statement or research question.
• Research materials :  Peer-reviewed research ,  Databases by Subject , Government Sources, etc.
• Assignment : Have students submit an  annotated bibliography .
• Research materials : All previous materials
• Assignment : Have students submit a first and final draft. Considering adding in a peer-review option for students to access if interested.
• Assignment : Have students respond to the following self-reflection questions: What is the most important thing you learned from the project? What was the most enjoyable aspect of the project? What was the hardest part of the project? What do you wish you had spent more time on? What do you wish you knew at the beginning that would have made this research project easier?

Reference :

Kuhlthau, C. C. (2009). Information Search Process. http://wp.comminfo.rutgers.edu/ckuhlthau/information-search-process/

Scaffolding the Writing Process: An Approach to Assignment Design in the SOSC Core

By Sarah Johnson, Assistant Senior Instructional Professor & Director of Undergraduate Studies in Laws, Letters, and Society and CCTL Associate Pedagogy Fellow

Every time I design a new course, I return to the most significant piece of advice that I received when I was getting ready to teach for the first time: that it is my job to prepare my students to succeed on the assignments I give them. When I first heard this, it struck me as an obvious responsibility but also one that I had hardly considered. I was a graduate student at the time who was about to teach a section of Classics of Social and Political Thought in the Social Sciences (SOSC) Core along with a political theory seminar of my own design. These were courses in which students would read books, talk about them, and then write about them. I realized, on reflection, that I had assumed that my students would simply learn by doing, or that with the opportunity to read, discuss, and write that I was giving them—and with some feedback from me along the way—they would leave my classes more adept at these tasks than they were when the classes began. I had thus intended to rely upon my students’ other teachers to shape them into the kinds of readers, interlocutors, and writers that I both needed and wanted them to be and had no concrete strategy for taking on that responsibility myself. What would effective teaching moments look like in the kinds of courses that I wanted to offer? I’ve spent the last fifteen years trying to answer this question, largely through experimentation in the classroom and by learning from my own teachers and colleagues.  

Below I share an approach to designing writing assignments that came together when I was teaching full time in the SOSC Core as a Harper-Schmidt Fellow. It prepares students to succeed on their SOSC essays by breaking down the writing process into the essential steps that college-level writing demands and giving students time to attend to each one. The aim of scaffolding the writing process in this way is to help students not only to practice but also to learn the necessity and value of tasks such as exploratory writing, refining their ideas in conversation with others, and being mindful of their own development as writers (and thinkers). Using this assignment for the first essay of the quarter or year also helps me to clarify what I expect from my students each time they write a paper, even when some of the steps aren’t formally assigned. The ultimate goal of the assignment is to cultivate in my students a way of thinking about and approaching the writing process that will provide a foundation for further growth in other contexts.     

Two Preparatory Assignments: Exploration and Framework

I give students their essay assignment about two and a half weeks before the deadline and structure this time to help them use it effectively. There are various ways of doing this. One approach that I learned from Kristen Brookes, a former colleague who teaches at the Amherst College Writing Center, is to give students an opportunity to use informal, exploratory writing to generate ideas for a paper immediately after receiving the assignment. Following Kristen’s model, I first ask my students to revisit the material they will be writing about and to copy down about five passages that they think can help them to answer the essay question. They bring these passages to our next class, where I give them time to hand-write in short bursts of three to five minutes in response to a series of prompts. After initially writing about their tentative argument for the paper, the students engage with each of their chosen passages in whatever way is most useful to them—for example, by explaining its meaning or why they think it will be useful, or by writing about any questions the passage inspires. As I learned from Kristen, what matters most in this exercise is that the students write constantly during their brief time with each prompt and resist the urge to criticize or edit what they have written. The point of an exercise like this is to get all their ideas onto the page without judgment. Once that is done, they can spend time reviewing what they have written to determine which ideas are more and less useful and revisit their plans for their paper.   

My students then take advantage of the momentum generated by this initial exercise as they complete a second preparatory assignment that is due roughly twelve days before the essay deadline. The students’ task here is to transform their initial ideas into a framework for their paper. This framework includes a draft thesis-statement followed by a point-based outline, in which they write out the point of each paragraph in a complete sentence. As a final component of the framework assignment, I ask the students to provide a few pieces of textual evidence that can be analyzed to substantiate each point along with a brief discussion of why each passage will be helpful.  

I saw Kristen make great use of pairing exploratory writing and point-based outline assignments at Amherst, but it was while training to be a lector for the Academic and Professional Writing course here at Chicago in graduate school that I first learned the value of teaching students to think about paragraphs in terms of points as opposed to topics or topic sentences. Whereas a topic sentence need only announce in broad terms what each paragraph will discuss, a paragraph’s point announces to the reader the reason why that paragraph exists at all. It is the specific step in the paper’s overarching argument that a given paragraph will develop and defend in order to develop and defend that larger argument successfully. Within a paragraph, then, the point carries the authority of a thesis: it governs everything that is written in it and helps the writer to determine what they must accomplish before moving on to the next paragraph. The framework assignment thus allows students to begin considering the moves they will need to make in their paper, the order in which those moves must be made, and the kinds of evidence and analysis that they might provide to execute those moves effectively. The assignment requires much of the reading and thinking effort that a full draft would require, but by producing just its essential components a student can more easily see the relationships among their thesis and their paragraphs and where things may have gone wrong as they worked up their argument.  

Required Meeting: Feedback and Refining Ideas

I use these two preparatory assignments as the basis for a twenty-minute conversation with each student one week to ten days before the essay is due. The purpose of requiring students to meet with me at this stage is not only to provide verbal feedback on their framework assignment and to address questions and concerns about their developing paper. Its purpose is also to help students make the most of their discoveries from the preparatory assignments and to demonstrate the role of conversation in the refinement and generation of ideas.  

For instance, when reviewing the framework assignment, I might see that a student’s points develop a different and stronger argument than is found in the thesis statement at the top of the page. In this case, I would use our conversation to explain the misalignment between the existing thesis and points, to show the student the insight that they reached through the process of working on their paper, and to brainstorm with the student what a thesis statement might look like that would do justice to their insight. Another student might plan to discuss an important concept in their paper without doing so in sufficient detail. Here I would ask the student to explain their understanding of the concept in order to draw out the knowledge they have about it that does not yet appear in their framework. We could then discuss how to incorporate that information into their paper. 

Reflection: Opening a Conversation about Writing

Just as the required meeting offers students a chance to step back from their ideas in the middle of the writing process to reflect on the shape their paper is taking, I give students a way to take stock of their entire experience of writing the paper after they finish it. I want them to keep in mind that the paper they have written for me is part of their larger process of development as writers, a process that began long before they entered my classroom and one that will continue long after they leave. This means that when they write for me, they are drawing upon habits and skills that they learned by writing in other contexts while also cultivating new habits and skills that they can rely upon in future papers. Before submitting their final drafts, my students therefore prepare a 300- to 500-word reflection that helps them to understand their own writing process and to become more self-conscious about their development as writers. These reflections discuss 1) what they found most challenging about writing the essay; 2) something that they learned while writing it; 3) something that their essay does well; and 4) something that they could do to improve the essay. When they write their final paper of the quarter, I also ask them to discuss 5) how they have improved as a writer during the quarter; and 6) in what ways they would like to improve as a writer in future quarters.  

Final Paper Comments: A Focus on Writing Development

The students’ reflections on their papers open a conversation about writing that I enter through my feedback. I typically begin my comments at the end of a paper by engaging with one of their own observations about their writing process. For example, students often report that their argument underwent significant changes between the time they began outlining and drafting their paper and when they submitted it. Some will take from this experience the insight that they need to try to give themselves more time than they typically do to write their papers as these transformations, although frustrating, ultimately made their final draft much better than it would have otherwise been. In response to an observation like this, I might explain that this is indeed an indispensable part of the writing process and that building in more time for these discoveries and revisions will help them to write at an even higher level. But some students will draw a different conclusion from the same experience, namely that they did something wrong because they did not begin writing with the best possible argument in mind. Their goal in future essays is usually to develop a better plan for their papers in advance so that they can avoid friction and uncertainty in the drafting process. In these cases, I would caution them against this aspiration by explaining that we typically only find the best arguments we can make through the process of writing itself, and that the evolution of their own argument demonstrates that they did exactly what they were supposed to do during the writing process.  

In the rest of my comments, I discuss two or three writing issues that I want the student to try to address in their next paper. I number these discussions and place corresponding numbers in the margins of the essay to show the student where each problem occurred. Over the years, these numbers have become the only margin notes I make on essays, an approach that I remember one of my own professors, Aryeh Kosman, using when I was in college. I have discovered that providing feedback in this way allows me to focus the student’s attention on making the improvements that I think will have the greatest impact on the next paper they write, whether that paper is written for me or another instructor. And by addressing these at the end of the paper, I give myself the space both to explain why the issues I identified are indeed problems and to provide concrete suggestions for how to avoid them in the future. In doing so, I often draw upon my training for Academic and Professional Writing, where I was taught to rewrite sentences for my students in order to show them how the feedback I was offering could be put to use and the difference that it would make to their writing.  

Although this kind of feedback necessarily emphasizes problems at the level of writing over problems at the level of textual interpretation, this does not mean that I ignore the claims my students make about the texts we are studying. Rather, it means that what I say about a student’s interpretation will be in the service of helping them to do a better job on their next paper, which is unlikely to be on the same text and will often be in another course altogether. For example, students often attribute ideas to an author that I don’t think can be supported by the text at all, and certainly not by the parts of it that they quoted or cited as evidence. When this happens, I might explain why I don’t think they can use a particular passage as evidence for their claim, offer a few examples of claims that the passage could in fact support, and explain the difference between these claims and the student’s. My aim in doing this would be to help the student to become a more careful reader by giving them tools that can help them to scrutinize their textual evidence during the drafting process.

Final Thoughts

While this specific approach to scaffolding writing assignments can help students to succeed on their SOSC essays, the principle that underlies it—breaking down a writing process into its essential components—can also guide the design of writing assignments in upper-level undergraduate courses. It has helped me, for example, when designing research assignments for my courses in the Law, Letters, and Society program. I ask myself what students would have to accomplish throughout the quarter to succeed on their projects and turn these expected milestones into guided assignments that provide an opportunity for feedback. No matter the level of the course, then, I aim to avoid assuming that my students already know the motions that I expect them to go through to complete an assignment and instead build those into the course itself.

Sarah Johnson is Assistant Senior Instructional Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Law, Letters, and Society (LLSO) Program. Her current research focuses on the coevolution of Karl Marx’s ideas about history, critique, and political economy in the 1840s. In addition to teaching courses on political economy in LLSO, she regularly teaches in the Classics of Social and Political Thought Core sequence.  

Distance Learning

Building up to big assignments and complex tasks: making the case for assignment scaffolding.

by Jeanne Kerl and Kristina Wilson

Introduction

Do some topics or skills seem too large to approach in your course? Are your students struggling with time management? Do you want to provide students with thorough, meaningful feedback but find it difficult to keep up with all the grading? Do you want your students to learn more effectively? Assignment scaffolding could be the answer.

Source: Pixabay

What is assignment scaffolding and why is it important?

Simply put, assignment scaffolding helps break down large ideas or tasks into smaller steps that build on each other. Consider the analogy at the root of the term. Scaffolding, like the multi-level, metal structure above, is a temporary support that helps construct a building. At the end of the project, the scaffolding is removed and the building stands on its own.

Imagine trying to create that building without the help of scaffolding. How would workers move between levels of the building? How would it be built beyond a story or two? To zoom out even further, how do workers know what the building looks like? Where are they getting materials from?

Now imagine asking students to complete a 20-page paper that is due the last day of class. You never discuss their thesis with them, read a draft, or review their resources in advance. How will they organize their work? How will they push their critical thinking skills to the next level? Furthermore, how will they decide what to write about? What research will support their argument?

In these cases, showing up empty-handed–to a vacant lot, to a blank page–doesn’t often lead to brilliant work. Both the building and the research paper should be carefully planned, with input provided throughout the process. Otherwise, the building may look nothing like what the architect envisioned or the paper may look nothing like what you intended in the prompt.

Process scaffolding and critical thinking scaffolding

Ryerson University’s Best Practices in Instructional Scaffolding explains Lev Vygotsky’s “zone of proximal development” as the place where what you do know intersects with what you don’t know yet. A scaffolding structure is designed to make the most of this theory, making sure there is room for development after each effort. This document goes on to differentiate between process scaffolding and critical thinking scaffolding .

Process scaffolding separates an assignment into components that build on each other. It asks the question, “How do I break down this large task into smaller, more manageable tasks?” Critical thinking scaffolding develops lower-order critical thinking skills before requiring higher-order critical thinking skills. It asks, “What skills do I need to master before the next part of the task can be completed?” A well-scaffolded course does both, as you’ll see in the examples below.

Scaffolding in a graduate public policy course

One example of scaffolding is from MPPA 409: Effective Writing & Communication, taught by Professor Meghann Pytka. Pytka is a big advocate for the use of scaffolding as a way of ensuring that students put the research writing process under the microscope.

She found that many students reached the capstone course with an inadequate understanding of some of the more nuanced aspects of academic research and writing, so she developed a course that is a deep dive into academic writing. Each week builds toward the creation of a final research paper, moving through:

• Brainstorming a topic
• Topic Selection
• Refining the Topic
• Annotated Bibliography
• Literature Review
• Substantive Outline
• Background Section
• Analysis and Policy Implementation Section
• Introduction/Conclusion/Abstract/Title
• Final version

The course is structured so that each week has a mini-assignment that builds toward the whole. In this way, students question their assumptions about the entire process of“writing a public policy research paper. Mirroring Professor Pytka’s approach, Columbia College provides a handy guide to Scaffolding Research Assignments that breaks the writing process up into six stages: selecting a topic, finding background information (“presearch”), research, source evaluation, drafting, and final drafting.

The course also uses peer review as a way to gain new perspectives on one’s work. This mirrors the best practice of having colleagues give you feedback while writing.  Each person has a peer buddy who gives them feedback on three of the mini-assignments.The feedback is highly structured–a peer fills out a worksheet and everyone works from agreed upon ground rules. These peer review assignments are low stakes, but they can provide invaluable help and the experience can build a sense of community in a course.

Scaffolding in an undergraduate organizational behavior course

This example is much smaller in scope, but just as effective. In ORG BEH 311: Conflict Resolution, Professor Patty McNally planned an assignment to help students analyze the concepts of negotiation and mediation. Students were asked to find videos that were examples of either good or bad negotiation or mediation. Students then watched each other’s video choices and answered a set of questions about them. They were asked to draw upon the readings and media within the course.

The next week, students looked over comments left on their own video selection as well as the whole experience of watching and commenting on their peers’ selections and used all of this as fodder for a reflection paper about how the experience 1) deepened their understanding of the concepts and 2) what they learned about “best practices” for negotiation and mediation.  

This assignment encourages natural interaction about content that they’ve chosen to add to the course, and we think students feel more of a sense of ownership in this assignment. It also adds variety to the course and makes the class engagement stretch beyond the normal discussion board post. Students have to show that they’ve mastered the content, but a great deal of choice is baked into the assignment. The reflection piece allows students to make their own connections between the readings and the experience of choosing, watching and commenting on the content.

Now that you know a little about the theory of assignment scaffolding and have examined a few case studies, it’s time to think about implementing scaffolding into your course. For example, you might be thinking, “How can I explain scaffolding to my students so that they don’t think of it as busywork?” or “How can I articulate the value of peer review?” The University of Colorado Denver provides an excellent chart that maps active verbs in Bloom’s Taxonomy to a critical thinking scaffolding (page 4).

You might also consider reviewing resources specific to your context. For example, are you asking students to complete a multimodal assignment such as a video recording? Scaffolding a video project may look very different from a research paper; you might have a script instead of a draft, or need to learn technology skills during the research phase. Check out the University of Michigan’s guide to Sequencing and Scaffolding Assignments (see Strategy 3: Sequencing and Scaffolding Multimodal Composition Assignments ).

If you’re interested in learning more about assignment scaffolding, ask your Learning Designer for more information or e-mail [email protected] .

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Designing Effective Research Assignments

• Designing a Research Assignment
• Designing an Information Literacy Curriculum

Below are questions to ask yourself when designing an assignment that promotes information literacy and critical thinking skills.

• What will students learn as a result of completing this assignment?
• What are the information literacy student learning outcomes?
• What are the writing or presentation outcomes?
• What are the discipline-specific outcomes?
• Are these goals clear to students?
• Does our library have these resources? Are they freely and easily available elsewhere?
• Is there a link to the library (or other needed resources) in the assignment and/or syllabus?
• Is there a link to any related student services (peer tutoring, technology help desk, etc.) in the assignment and/or syllabus?
• Does this model a process students can repeat in the future? Is that clear to students?
• Is there space for students to reflect on what they are doing, which strategies are working and which aren’t?
• Does this provide enough time for students to be successful?
• Does it provide time for you to give feedback to students, and for students to revise and/or integrate that feedback into their next piece of work?
• Do you have grading criteria or a rubric to help you score student work? Is this available to students?
• Might you ask past students if you can use their work as a sample, or can you create your own?
• How will students access the sample(s)? Hand out in class, provide in Moodle, etc.?

Source: Greenfield Community College Library.  “Information Literacy Toolkit for Faculty.”  gcc.mass.edu, Greenfield Community College. Accessed 1 Jan. 2021.

Scaffolding and reinforcing information literacy skills and concepts throughout your courses and program, will allow students to develop and master their skill set. Below are a number of questions to think about while creating course and program materials. 

• Is it clear to students how these skills connect to continued study and/or real life?
• What do they already know? Can you assume, or do you need to find out?
• Which information literacy skills do you need to teach, in addition to your course content?
• What can a librarian help teach?
• What needs to be done during class time (for face-to-face classes)?
• What can be done outside of class, as homework?
• What supports does the library already have available (i.e. Moodle plug-ins, videos, handouts, etc.)?
• If you want a librarian to teach, where does that fit in the course schedule?
• If not, what needs to change? Course content, the research assignment, or both?

Greenfield Community College Library.  “Information Literacy Toolkit for Faculty.”  gcc.mass.edu, Greenfield Community College. Accessed 1 Jan. 2021.

Ideas and Examples

• Classic Examples of Research Assignments
• Ideas for Research-related Assignments

Assignments below are linked to documents. Please feel to download and edit for your classroom or context and to remix assignments. A librarian would be happy to tailor a version of an assignment or scaffold research skills into your class.

Example of a short assignment that asks students to think critically about two news sources.

Example of an annotated bibliography assignment that asks students to think critically about their sources.

Example of a research paper abstract assignment that asks students to closely evaluate their topics and sources needed.

Example of an assignment that asks students to brainstorm and evaluate research questions.

Example of an assignment that asks to compare and evaluate various sources.

Example of an assignment that asks students to critically approach source use and paraphrasing.

Example of an assignment that asks students to detail the research process by recording search strategies and resources located.

Example of an assignment that asks students to choose and refine a research topic.

Example of an assignment that asks students to think critically about sources.

Example of an assignment that asks students to crucially evaluate their research topic by evalauting sources.

There are any number of library-related assignments that can be incorporated into a course. Here are a few examples that can be adapted to most subjects (assignments may be repeated across categories).

Critical Evaluations & Comparisons

• Locate a popular magazine article, then find a scholarly article on the same subject. Compare the two articles for content, style, bias, audience, etc.
• Analyze the content, style, and audience of three journals in a given discipline.
• Choose an autobiography of someone related to the course content. Find secondary sources which deal with an idea or event described in the autobiography. Compare and contrast the sources.
• Evaluate a website based on specific criteria.
• Determine the adequacy of a psychological test based on the literature about the test. Then develop a test battery designed for a particular clinical (or other) situation, by using published tests and the literature about them.
• To develop the ability to evaluate sources, students prepare a written criticism of the literature on a particular issue by finding book reviews, by searching citation indexes to see who is quoting the context of the scholarship in a particular field.
• Students use bibliographies, guides to the literature and the Internet to find primary sources on an issue or historical period. They can contrast the treatment in the primary sources with the treatment in secondary sources including their textbook.
• Write a newspaper story describing an event--political, social, cultural, whatever suits the objectives-based on their research. The assignment can be limited to one or two articles, or it can be more extensive. This is a good exercise in critical reading and in summarizing. The assignment gains interest if several people research the same event in different sources and compare the newspaper stories that result.
• Contrast journal articles or editorials from recent publications reflecting conservative and liberal tendencies.
• Write a review of a musical performance. Include reference not only to the performance attended, but to reviews of the composition's premiere, if possible. Place the composition in a historical context using timetables, general histories and memoirs when available, using this information to gain insight into its current presentation.

Fact-Finding Research

• Read an editorial and find facts to support it.
• In biology or health classes, assign each student a 'diagnosis' (can range from jock itch to Parkinson's Disease). Have them act as responsible patients by investigating both the diagnosis and the prescribed treatment. Results presented in a two-page paper should cover: a description of the condition and its symptoms; its etiology; its prognosis; the effectiveness of the prescribed treatment, its side effects and contradictions, along with the evidence; and, finally, a comparison of the relative effectiveness of alternate treatments. This can also be accompanied by oral or visual presentations, slideshow, poster session, etc.
• Students follow a piece of legislation through Congress. This exercise is designed primarily to help them understand the process of government. However it could also be used in something like a 'critical issues' course to follow the politics of a particular issue. (What groups are lobbying for or against a piece of legislation? How does campaign financing affect the final decision? etc.).
• Similar to the above, have students follow a particular foreign policy situation as it develops. Who are the organizations involved? What is the history of the issue? What are the ideological conflicts?
• Nominate someone or a group for the Nobel Peace Prize. Learn about the prize, the jury, etc. Justify the nominations.
• Write an exam on one area; answer some or all of the questions (depending on professor's preference). Turn in an annotated bibliography of source material, and rationale for questions.

Career-Based Research

• Assemble background information on a company or organization in preparation for a hypothetical interview. For those continuing in academia, research prospective colleagues' and professors' backgrounds, publications, current research, etc.
• Ask each student to describe a career they envision themselves in and then research the career choice. What are the leading companies in that area? Why? (If they choose something generic like secretarial or sales, what is the best company in their county of residence to work for? Why?) Choose a company and find out what its employment policies are-flex time, family leave, stock options. If the company is traded publicly, what is its net worth? What is the outlook for this occupation? Expected starting salary? How do the outlook and salaries vary by geography?

Personal Research

• Locate primary sources from the date of your birth. You may use one type type of material only once, i.e., one newspaper headline of a major event, one quotation, one biography, one census figure, one top musical number, one campus event, etc. Use a minimum of six different sources. Write a short annotation of each source and include the complete bibliographic citation.

Historical Research (for any subject)

• Select a scholar/researcher in a field of study and explore that person's career and ideas. Besides locating biographical information, students prepare a bibliography of writings and analyze the reaction of the scholarly community to the researcher's work.
• Pick a topic and research it in literature from the 60s and 70s. Then research the same topic in the literature of the 80s and 90s. Compare and contrast the topic in a bibliographic essay.
• Write a biographical sketch of a famous person. Use biographical dictionaries, popular press and scholarly sources, and books to find information about the person.
• Everyone becomes an historical figure for a day. Students research the person, time-period, culture, etc. They give an oral presentation in class and answer questions.
• Similar to the above, students adopt a persona and write letters or journal entries that person might have written. The level of research required to complete the assignment can range from minimal to a depth appropriate for advanced classes.
• News conferences offer good opportunities to add depth to research and thus might work particularly well with advanced students. A verbatim transcript of an analytical description of a news conference can serve as a format for simulated interviews with well known people of any period. What questions would contemporaries have asked? What questions would we now, with hindsight, want to ask? How would contemporary answers have differed from those that might be given today? Here students have an opportunity to take a rigorous, analytical approach, both in terms of the questions to be asked and the information contained in the answers.

Biographical Research

(annotated) bibliography variations.

• Prepare an annotated bibliography of books, journal articles, and other sources on a topic. Include evaluative annotations.
• Create a Web page on a narrow topic relevant to the course. Include meta sites, e-journals, discussion lists, and organizations.
• Update an existing bibliography or review of the literature.
• Compile an anthology of readings by one person or on one topic. Include an introduction with biographical information about the authors, and the rationale for including the works [justify with reviews or critical materials].
• Choose a topic of interest and search it on the Internet. Cross reference all search engines and find all websites which discuss the topic. Like a research paper, students will have to narrow and broaden accordingly. The student will then produce an annotated bibliography on the topic, based solely on internet references.
• Create an anthology. The model for this format is the annotated book of readings with which most students are familiar. In this case, however, rather than being given the anthology, they are asked to compile it themselves. The assignment can limit the acceptable content to scholarly articles written within the last ten years, or it can be broadened to include chapters or excerpts from monographs and significant older materials. Students should be asked to write an introduction to the anthology that would display an overall understanding of the subject. In addition, each item should be described, and an explanation given as to why it is included. The assignment could also require a bibliography of items considered for inclusion as well as copies of the items selected. In any subject course in which students would benefit from finding and reading a variety of scholarly, such an assignment would guarantee that they use their library skills to locate the articles, their critical reading skills to make the selections, and a variety of writing skills to produce the introduction, the summaries, and the explanations.

Literature Review Variations

• Each student in the class is given responsibility for dealing with a part of the subject of the course. He or she is then asked to 1) find out what the major reference sources on the subject are; 2) find out "who's doing what where" in the field; 3) list three major unresolved questions about the subject; 4) prepare a 15 minute oral presentation to introduce this aspect of the subject to the class.
• Conduct the research for a paper except for writing the final draft. At various times students are required to turn in 1) their choice of topic; 2) an annotated bibliography; 3) an outline; 4) a thesis statement; 5) an introduction and a conclusion.
• Write a grant proposal addressed to a specific funding agency; include supporting literature review, budget, etc. Have class peer groups review. (Best proposal could be submitted for funding of summer research).

Collins Memorial Library.  “Ideas for Library-Related Assignments.”  Pugetsound.edu, University of Puget Sound. Accessed 1 Jan. 2021.

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AI in the Classroom

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Scaffolding Refresher

Check out these sites if you want a quick refresher on how and why to scaffold assignments.

• Scaffolding Research Assignments, Columbia College in Vancouver
• Assignment Scaffolding, U Toronto (but found on the Brooklyn CUNY site)
• Course and Assignment Design, UToronto

Topic Selection

Additional Benefits : The resulting text actually acts as a baseline research starter. As the student reads, it becomes background knowledge that the student can then use to develop keyword search strategies in their actual research. As long as they know that the resulting information created by the AI may not be accurate, then it will serve as a good springboard.

Additional Benefits : Students can use the names of scholars with diverse viewpoints in author searches on various databases to see the breadth of what they study and which journals publish them. This in turn can help students refine their own techniques to recognize and lift up marginalized voices.

Source Evaluation

Additional Benefits :

Rough Drafts

Write a prompt to analyze and edit text, then copy and paste your rough draft into the tool for immediate writing advice.

Additional Benefits to the AI :

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• Faculty Services
• Tips for Developing Effective Research Assignments
• Scaffolding Research Assignments

How to Scaffold Assignments

Scaffolding according to the research process, troubleshooting scaffolding (from modesto junior college).

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Example Scaffolded Assignment: Research Paper

Research Paper Assignment Prompt :  For this assignment, you will be writing a 10 page research paper on homelessness in a Los Angeles neighborhood. Your task is to synthesize current research and summarize proposed homelessness solutions. By synthesizing, you are expected to integrate multiple sources (at least four) into conversation with one another. In other words, you should not summarize each source paragraph-by-paragraph.

Based upon a class that has two meetings a week (ex: Tuesday and Thursday)

Class Meeting 1:  Assignment introduction with models/examples; students introduced to necessary resources inlcuding library resources and support; in class, the students do a group think on possible neighborhoods and sources.

Out of Class 1.5 : Due: discussion post/research log on how to find sources on topic using library resources

Class Meeting 2:  Due: Annotated bibliography of five sources with summaries and critiques

Class Meeting 3:  Instructor feedback given on annotated bibliographies 

Out of Class 3.5 : Due: discussion post self-reflection on annotated bibliography feedback, what was learned about evaluating sources and the scholarly conversation

Class Meeting 4:  Due: ¾ rough draft of paper; peer review conversations

Class Meeting 5:  Final draft due

Class Meeting 6:  Instructor feedback on final drafts given by end of week

Class Meeting 7:  Paper Due: Optional revisions or self-reflection on research process

Adapted from Miami of Ohio Scaffolding Assignments

Basic guidelines

• As the instructor, model tasks, processes, or tools to complete the project. This may include organizing information, finding information in the library, or completing the first assignment in the process. Select manageable tasks to match the learning outcomes for the assignment. Example: For research paper assignment, outline the requirements and contents of the final product.
• Work with the students or have student groups work on a similar task, process, or using a tool as a class. Example: For research paper, students produce outline to begin paper process. Instructor assesses outline using criteria from step 1.
• Ask individual students to complete the task, process, or use the tool to assess mastery. Think about necessary steps needed to complete the assignment given previous tasks. Example: Student submits draft paper and reflects upon criteria from previous step. After draft feedback, student submits final draft with personal assessment of paper writing process.

Raising the stakes

Consider revising the stakes for assignments as part of scaffolding including:

• New Ideas & First time exposure to ideas means Low to no stakes. Ex: research proposal, discussion posts on topics, etc.
• Repeated exposure to new concepts means low to mid stakes 
• Working toward abstract understanding, mastering and internalizing concepts, seeing relationships between new and old material means mid to high stakes. Ex: Annotated bibliographies, debates, pro/con papers, etc.
• Using concepts to solve problems or submit deliverables means mid to high stakes. Ex: Research papers, presentations, essays, etc.

Adapted from NIU Instructional Scaffolding , Miami of Ohio Scaffolding Assignments

Resources for Scaffolding Content

• Scaffolding Content (Buffalo)
• Scaffolding as a RoadMap: Guiding and Supporting Student Learning
• Writing Assignment Design in Online Environments (PPT)

Adapted from Columbia College Scaffolding Guide , Modesto Junior College scaffolding guide .

Adapted from Skene, Allyson and Sarah Fedko. " Assignment Scaffolding ." Centre for Teaching and Learning, University of Toronto Scarborough,   https://ctl.utsc.utoronto.ca/technology/sites/default/files/scaffolding.pdf. 

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Designing Research Assignments: Scaffolding

• Rethinking Requirements
• Scaffolding
• The BEAM Method
• Threshold Concepts

Assuming Students are Good at Research

Students are very good at finding things online. They are less adept at evaluating the resources they locate and utilizing them to support or refute a point they are making or engaging in the academic conversation on a given topic.

Instead of assuming students are good at research, consider designing research assignments as though students know little to nothing about the academic research process and scaffold assignments as much as possible. This allows students to build a foundation for their future work. Throughout the assignment, incorporate elements of threshold concepts in information literacy alongside those from your discipline. 

Scaffolding Examples

One effective method of scaffolding is to take a complex assignment and break it into smaller components. Providing formative feedback on the earlier assignments will help students master each step in the process before proceeding further. This type of scaffolding helps students get started on complex assignments early and ensures that they are on track throughout.

Troubleshoot Scaffolding

Attribution

Adapted from Skene, Allyson and Sarah Fedko. " Assignment Scaffolding ." Centre for Teaching and Learning, University of Toronto Scarborough,   https://ctl.utsc.utoronto.ca/technology/sites/default/files/scaffolding.pdf. 

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Scaffolding and Sequencing Writing Assignments

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Developing clear and concise written arguments is a required skill in most academic disciplines and an expected skill in most workplaces. Because effective written communication is such a vital skill for students to master, every course has an opportunity to help students develop as writers. One strategy for teaching writing is scaffolding. Scaffolding is an instructional strategy that breaks down a writing task into manageable steps. These steps align with the steps of the writing process: prewriting, planning/outlining, drafting, revising, and editing. Once an assignment is chunked in this way, instructors can employ instructional strategies to coach students through completing all steps of the writing process. It is important to note that scaffolding does not remove or complete steps for the student; it is simply a strategy for explicitly teaching each component involved in crafting an effective written argument. To effectively scaffold an assignment to support student success, consider breaking the assignment up into the following steps:

Step 1: Prewriting 

Before students start writing, they should carefully read through the assignment description. Once students fully understand the assignment goals, they can begin brainstorming ideas and gathering information.  A possible prewriting activity for gathering relevant information is a close annotation of source texts. Instructors can use social annotation tools such as Perusall or Hypothesis to push student thinking during the prewriting stage. This assignment is also an opportunity for instructors to check that students have chosen relevant passages, quotes, and examples to support their claims. These discrete activities guide students through the process of selecting and integrating textual evidence effectively, enhancing the credibility and persuasiveness of their arguments. For research assignments, prewriting could involve gathering relevant research to support a thesis. Before starting the research process, introduce students to available resources such as scholarly databases, online libraries, and academic journals. Help them navigate these resources effectively, teaching them how to search for and evaluate credible sources. The library has a number of valuable resources to support the teaching of research. Depending on the level of research proficiency you expect from your students, you can include library resources in your Canvas course for students to access as needed, or you can request an instructional session for your entire class. As students begin researching, consider modeling effective organization of research in Google Sheets. Show students how to organize sheets by sub-question and  track relevant supporting evidence from source material with corresponding citations.

Step 2: Planning and Outlining

Once students have completed preliminary research or analysis of source texts, they can start planning their argument. Small group discussions can help students develop and solidify their argument. During group discussions, students have the opportunity to share their annotations, clarify misconceptions, and gain additional understanding through collaboration with their peers. The same strategy benefits students who are writing research papers. Students present their research question, thesis, and supporting evidence to a small group. At the end of each informal presentation is an opportunity for the small group to ask questions, during which time the presenter may uncover gaps in their argument or recognize the need for more compelling evidence to support their claim. After students have engaged in some initial planning, they are ready to organize their argument. A helpful strategy for helping students organize an effective argument is a paper presentation. Instead of asking students to hand in an outline of their paper, ask students to present their paper. In addition to functioning as an outline, the act of presenting their argument orally makes it easier for students to identify areas for improvement. The time students spend practicing to deliver their presentation makes it more likely that they will self correct illogical argumentation, lack of supporting evidence, missing connections between ideas, and any omitted assignment requirements. The presentations also provide students with an opportunity to get feedback on their outlines. Depending on the size of your class, you might be able to get through all student presentations in one class period, making it possible for students to receive both peer and instructor feedback. 

Step 3: Drafting

This step involves breaking the assignment into sections that students will draft one at a time. Requiring students to write their paper section by section helps students effectively allocate their time and makes it more manageable for instructors to provide targeted feedback on each section. Giving students feedback a section at a time should also allow students the opportunity to show growth over the course of the assignment. To promote this, you can ask students to share the specific feedback they incorporated from a previous section to improve the draft of the section they are currently working on. This practice helps students develop metacognitive awareness about their writing, and it should enable you to give increasingly advanced feedback over the course of the same assignment. During the drafting stage, you can also give students time to write collaboratively. If there is a particularly difficult section of the paper, such as the introduction, you can organize students into groups and give each student 20 minutes to write their introduction with the help of their peers. Instead of silently thinking through how to get started, students talk out their ideas. Communicating their thoughts orally helps students identify what they are trying to say before they begin writing. Their peers provide feedback and suggestions for improvement during this step in the process. When they are ready to write, they receive support from their group as they translate their thoughts into a well-structured written argument.

Step 4: Revising

To help improve student writing, instructors can provide feedback using collaborative documents. This approach allows instructors to respond to student questions and observe any revisions made. Feedback should be given section by section so that students have sufficient time to incorporate your suggestions. Another revision strategy is peer review. Using the assignment rubric, peers provide feedback to one or more of their classmates. Instructors can also provide exemplar papers to help students assess the quality of their own work or of their peers. Providing students with an assignment rubric is another way to guide the revision process. Students can complete a self assessment, measuring their work against the performance criteria outlined in the rubric.After students have identified areas for improvement, they can create a plan to improve their current draft. During the revision process, instructors will need to provide support to students who may not know how to make improvements. Instructors can offer office hours, plan in class writing workshops, and connect students with resources, such as the Sweetland Center for Writing . 

Step 5: Editing and Publishing

Once students have finished revising their paper, they can begin to focus on grammar and style. Instructors can support students with this step by pointing out recurring errors they identified while grading student drafts. Before publishing their work, students should check that they have fulfilled all assignment requirements before submitting their work. You can help students identify any missing requirements by asking students to annotate their paper, marking the portions of their writing that correspond to the requirements outlined in the assignment description. Once students have made any necessary final changes, they are ready to publish their work. Conclusion While the process of scaffolding an assignment takes additional time, there is incredible value in teaching students how to manage the writing process. If you don’t have enough time to scaffold your assignment in this way, you can encourage students to scaffold their own writing. For example, during the drafting stage, you can help your students develop their own writing plan. To do this, ask students to chunk the assignment into sections and map out a schedule for completing each section. Provide opportunities for formative feedback at one-on-one writing conferences. Providing multiple opportunities for students to meet with you will serve as a strong incentive for students to honor their chosen deadlines, ensuring they don’t miss the opportunity to address weak areas and ask questions before the assignment is due. 

Want More Help?

If you would like support with scaffolding an upcoming writing assignment, the Learning and Teaching Consultants are available for course consultations. Or, reach out to us at [email protected].

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Scaffolding Instruction Toolkit: Scaffolding with LibGuides

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Why scaffold with your LibGuides?

Process Scaffolding Process scaffolding  breaks a complex task down into smaller, more manageable parts that slowly increase in cognitive complexity in order to form a cohesive whole ( University of Waterloo, n.d .; Schroeder, 2012 ). By breaking down major assignments into several components, you can focus on the skills or types of knowledge students require to successfully complete the larger assignment, and support them in a way where student engagement is increased, rather than assigning a single assignment that might be initially confusing and overwhelming ( Writing Center, University of Colorado, n.d . ).

Sequencing these assignments is crucial: you must order them in such a way that students master a skill set that is important to develop the next. The process allows students to see the bigger picture and allows you to empower students to work towards it independently.

Benefits of Process Scaffolding Student Benefits:

• Makes the process of developing what might otherwise seem like a complicated assignment seems much more feasible.
• Assignments that could appear unmanageable are presented as a set of understandable tasks.
• Gives students a chance to gain expertise with a set of academic skills in a graduated way.
• Helps students to develop transferable skills that can be used throughout their entire academic career.

Instructor Benefits

• Makes the learning process more transparent, and sets a clear path to achieving learning outcomes.
• Presents assignments as integrated activities aligning with course goals, in a logical sequence.
• Allows for intervention at important junctures in order to provide feedback and keep students on track.
• Helps students develop Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS), and empowers them to see connections between tasks.

Adapted from Ryerson University's Teaching and Learning Office:  Best Practices: Instructional Scaffolding .

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Learning Strategies Using Process Scaffolding within LibGuides

Scaffolding Research Tasks In the table below you will find steps for breaking down a research assignment and scaffolding within a LibGuide.

Examples can be found at the bottom of each row.

Adapted from Fedko and Skene’s “ Assignment Scaffolding ,” University of Toronto Scarborough, and Nowak’s “ Scaffolding Research Assignments ,” Columbia College, Vancouver, B.C.

Guidelines for Implementing Scaffolding

Implementing Instructional Scaffolding

The following points can be used as guidelines when implementing instructional scaffolding (adapted from Hogan and Pressley, 2003).

• Select suitable tasks that match curriculum goals and students’ needs.
• Allow students to help create instructional goals (this can increase students’ motivation and their commitment to learning).
• Consider students’ backgrounds and prior knowledge to assess their progress.
• Use a variety of supports as students progress through a task (e.g., prompts, questions, hints, stories, models, visual scaffolding “including pointing, representational gestures, diagrams, and other methods of highlighting visual information” (Alibali, M, 2006).
• Provide encouragement and praise as well as ask questions and have students explain their progress to help them stay focused on the goal.
• Monitor student progress through feedback (in addition to instructor feedback, have students summarize what they have accomplished so they are aware of their progress and what they have yet to complete).
• Create a welcoming, safe, and supportive learning environment that encourages students to take risks and try alternatives (everyone should feel comfortable expressing their thoughts without fear of negative responses).
• Help students become less dependent on instructional supports as they work on tasks and encourage them to practice the task in different contexts.

Adapted from Hogan, K., and Pressley, M. (1997). Scaffolding student learning: Instructional approaches and issues . Cambridge, MA: Brookline Books.

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Faculty Guide to Generative AI in Higher Education

• What Is GAI?
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• AI & Scaffolding Assignments

Check out these sites if you want a quick refresher on how and why to scaffold assignments.

• Scaffolding Research Assignments, Columbia College in Vancouver
• Assignment Scaffolding, U Toronto (but found on the Brooklyn CUNY site)
• Course and Assignment Design, UToronto

Guide adapted with permission from AI in the Classroom guide by Dora Rowe at Union Presbyterian Seminary. 

Additional Benefits : The resulting text actually acts as a baseline research starter. As the student reads, it becomes background knowledge that the student can then use to develop keyword search strategies in their actual research. As long as they know that the resulting information created by the AI may not be accurate, then it will serve as a good springboard.

Additional Benefits : Students can use the names of scholars with diverse viewpoints in author searches on various databases to see the breadth of what they study and which journals publish them. This in turn can help students refine their own techniques to recognize and lift up marginalized voices.

Additional Benefits :

Write a prompt to analyze and edit text, then copy and paste your rough draft into the tool for immediate writing advice.

Additional Benefits to the AI :

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• Scaffolding and Sequencing Writing Assignments

Effective writing assignments, aligned with core learning goals, can help students build on their prior knowledge, apply key concepts introduced in lectures, labs, readings, and discussions, and anticipate future learning. While it is important to make the why behind the assignment clear to students, it’s also important to consider the when of the assignment. This page offers some guidelines for scaffolding and sequencing writing assignments. 

Scaffolding and sequencing are closely related terms. Scaffolding assignments entails breaking longer writing activities into shorter tasks. Sequencing assignments refers to the specific ordering of those writing tasks. Scaffolding and sequencing can be used to establish discrete stages within one longer assignment, and they can be used more broadly to organize an entire semester of writing. 

Options for Scaffolding and Sequencing

While it may not always be feasible to scaffold and sequence writing assignments, here are four options for how one might do so:

1. Scaffold and sequence assignments to move from smaller, discrete tasks to more complex ones. For example, a literature review is a complex writing assignment—often assigned in capstone-level courses—that requires the integration of multiple skills, such as careful reading, annotating, summarizing, and synthesizing. To support student writers in their development of a literature review, an instructor might scaffold the project into shorter tasks focused on reading, summarizing, and synthesizing. These short tasks provide an opportunity for the instructor to offer formative feedback and identify potential problems or challenges. Those tasks might then be sequenced into writing assignments that begin with a summary of a source, followed by an annotated bibliography, before culminating in the literature review. As seen in this example, complex tasks can be scaffolded by:

• Writing short, single-task papers (e.g. a methods section of a scientific paper) before writing longer ones with multiple dimensions (e.g. a scientific paper that includes the IMRAD structure.)
• Summarizing a text before analyzing, interpreting, or criticizing a text.
• Summarizing  multiple readings before comparing or synthesizing two or more readings.
• Explaining a basic concept before applying that concept to new problems or cases.
• Explaining one or more author’s argument or theory and evidence before putting these arguments and theories into discussion and/or before developing one’s own position on the issue.

2. Scaffold and sequence a key assignment into parts with which students might struggle that you can schedule as times for targeted writing instruction. For example, is there a research component? If so, schedule times for students to bring in critiques of their sources to discuss in groups. Are you asking them to analyze a problem? Schedule time to explain the methods of analysis in your field and have them apply it to their developing paper in a quick, informal writing assignment . 

3. Scaffold and sequence assignments so they begin with concrete tasks before moving into reflective, abstract, and active ones. Drawing on David Kolb’s work (1985) with learning phases , John Bean (2011) offers a useful overview of the kinds of writing assignments that might align with ways of thinking, learning, and knowing about your course topic:

Concrete Experience Assignments: Learners are introduced to new concepts and issues through watching a film or demonstration, playing a game, doing field observations, and so forth.

These may include non- or minimally graded writing that provides practice with expected critical and/or innovative thinking or records the learner’s personal observations, thoughts, and feelings during the initial experiences; raises questions; and expresses puzzlement. Read more about informal writing assignments .

Reflective Observation Assignments: Learners reconsider concepts and issues after reading, listening to lectures, participating in class discussions, and hearing different points of view.

These may include exploratory writing, such as journal entries, that allow students to connect new material to their personal experiences and what they’ve learned previously; personal pieces based on autobiographical experiences with a topic, problem, or concept; personal reflections that encourage a questioning, open-ended, thinking-aloud-on-paper approach. Read more about informal, out-of-class writing and reflective writing .

Abstract Conceptualization Assignments: Learners try to achieve an abstract understanding of the concepts and issues by mastering and internalizing their components and seeing the relationship between new material and other concepts and issues.

These may include academic, argument-based, analytical, thesis-driven papers; concept maps; role-playing assignments.

Active Conceptualization Assignments: Learners actively use newly acquired concepts to solve problems by applying them to new situations.

These may include position papers based on cases that use new concepts; write-ups of students’ laboratory or field research using the concepts; proposals applying new concepts and knowledge to solve real-world problems; creative pieces demonstrating understanding of new material.  

It’s important to note that these learning phases involving concrete, reflective, and abstract thinking are not meant to imply a hierarchy of value for each activity and the forms of writing associated with it. Rather, the sequencing of such tasks may be more productive for writers by moving from local to outward concerns.

4. Scaffold and sequence assignments to repeat and measure progress. There are very few skills that can be mastered in one writing assignment. Having learners write more than one case study, more than one technical memo, or more than one explication essay will allow them to develop increased control over the term.

Scaffolding and Sequencing across the Semester

The following writing assignments were developed for a course on medical anthropology. Here the instructor has scaffolded and sequenced the writing tasks, so that student writers will first define a key concept (structural violence), then analyze the key concept in a specific context, and then apply it to a course of action.

Writing Assignment 1 (Definition Essay): Paul Farmer introduces the idea of “structural violence,” a useful concept for thinking about the diagnosis of poor health and injustice around the world. Yet the term is not widely recognized or understood. In this paper, define and describe the concept of structural violence, and illustrate it with an example. Include a textual quote (of your choice) from Farmer’s essay that provides support for your definition and description.

Writing Assignment 2 (Op-Ed Essay): For the second essay cycle, imagine that you are invited to write a 3-page guest editorial for a newspaper or magazine of your choosing. Your Op-Ed must concern a contemporary issue involving health injustice and structural violence. 

Writing Assignment 3 (An Action Alert): Write an action alert essay that does not exceed five typed pages. While your essay needs to be coherent, it does not have to “look” like a conventional essay; for example, you may organize your paper according to categories, ones that will help your readers to find the information they want when they reread your alert. As with your op-ed, your action alert should target a specific audience of readers; however, unlike the op-ed, you are now writing to an audience that is generally sympathetic to your views. Your purpose for writing is to inform readers of the issue and to offer a specific course of action you think will help begin to solve the problem.

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6 Scaffolding Strategies to Use With Your Students

Support every student by breaking learning up into chunks and providing a concrete structure for each.

What’s the opposite of scaffolding a lesson? Saying to students, “Read this nine-page science article, write a detailed essay on the topic it explores, and turn it in by Wednesday.” Yikes! No safety net, no parachute—they’re just left to their own devices.

Let’s start by agreeing that scaffolding a lesson and differentiating instruction are two different things. Scaffolding is breaking up the learning into chunks and providing a tool, or structure, with each chunk. When scaffolding reading, for example, you might preview the text and discuss key vocabulary, or chunk the text and then read and discuss as you go. With differentiation, you might give a child an entirely different piece of text to read, or shorten the text or alter it, or modify the writing assignment that follows.

Simply put, scaffolding is what you do first with kids. For those students who are still struggling, you may need to differentiate by modifying an assignment or making accommodations like choosing a more accessible text or assigning an alternative project.

Scaffolding and differentiation do have something in common, though. In order to meet students where they are and appropriately scaffold a lesson or differentiate instruction, you have to know the individual and collective zone of proximal development (ZPD) of your learners. Education researcher Eileen Raymond says, “The ZPD is the distance between what children can do by themselves and the next learning that they can be helped to achieve with competent assistance.”

So let’s get to some scaffolding strategies you may or may not have tried yet. Or perhaps you’ve not used them in some time and need a gentle reminder on how awesome and helpful they can be when it comes to student learning.

1. Show and Tell

How many of us say that we learn best by seeing something rather than hearing about it? Modeling for students is a cornerstone of scaffolding, in my experience. Have you ever interrupted someone with “Just show me!” while they were in the middle of explaining how to do something? Every chance you have, show or demonstrate to students exactly what they are expected to do.

• Try a fishbowl activity , where a small group in the center is circled by the rest of the class; the group in the middle, or fishbowl, engages in an activity, modeling how it’s done for the larger group.
• Always show students the outcome or product before they do it. If a teacher assigns a persuasive essay or inquiry-based science project, a model should be presented side-by-side with a criteria chart or rubric. You can guide students through each step of the process with the model of the finished product in hand.
• Use think alouds , which will allow you to model your thought process as you read a text, solve a problem, or design a project. Remember that children’s cognitive abilities are still in development, so opportunities for them to see developed, critical thinking are essential.

2. Tap Into Prior Knowledge

Ask students to share their own experiences, hunches, and ideas about the content or concept of study and have them relate and connect it to their own lives. Sometimes you may have to offer hints and suggestions, leading them to the connections a bit, but once they get there, they will grasp the content as their own.

Launching the learning in your classroom from the prior knowledge of your students and using this as a framework for future lessons is not only a scaffolding technique—many would agree it’s just plain good teaching.

3. Give Time to Talk

All learners need time to process new ideas and information. They also need time to verbally make sense of and articulate their learning with the community of learners who are engaged in the same experience and journey. As we all know, structured discussions really work best with children regardless of their level of maturation.

If you aren’t weaving in think-pair-share, turn-and-talk, triad teams, or some other structured talking time throughout the lesson, you should begin including this crucial strategy on a regular basis.

4. Pre-Teach Vocabulary

Sometimes referred to as front-loading vocabulary, this is a strategy that we teachers don’t use enough. Many of us, myself included, are guilty of sending students all alone down the bumpy, muddy path known as Challenging Text—a road booby-trapped with difficult vocabulary. We send them ill-prepared and then are often shocked when they lose interest, create a ruckus, or fall asleep.

Pre-teaching vocabulary doesn’t mean pulling a dozen words from the chapter and having kids look up definitions and write them out—we all know how that will go. Instead, introduce the words to kids in photos or in context with things they know and are interested in. Use analogies and metaphors, and invite students to create a symbol or drawing for each word. Give time for small-group and whole-class discussion of the words. Not until they’ve done all this should the dictionaries come out. And the dictionaries will be used only to compare with those definitions they’ve already discovered on their own.

With the dozen or so words front-loaded, students are ready, with you as their guide, to tackle that challenging text.

5. Use Visual Aids

Graphic organizers, pictures, and charts can all serve as scaffolding tools. Graphic organizers are very specific in that they help kids visually represent their ideas, organize information, and grasp concepts such as sequencing and cause and effect.

A graphic organizer shouldn’t be The Product but rather a scaffolding tool that helps guide and shape students’ thinking. Some students can dive right into discussing, or writing an essay, or synthesizing several different hypotheses, without using a graphic organizer of some sort, but many of our students benefit from using one with a difficult reading or challenging new information. Think of graphic organizers as training wheels—they’re temporary and meant to be removed.

6. Pause, Ask Questions, Pause, Review

This is a wonderful way to check for understanding while students read a chunk of difficult text or learn a new concept or content. Here’s how this strategy works: Share a new idea from discussion or the reading, then pause (providing think time), and then ask a strategic question, pausing again.

You need to design the questions ahead of time, making sure they’re specific, guiding, and open-ended. (Even great questions fail if we don’t give think time for responses, so hold out during that Uncomfortable Silence.) Keep kids engaged as active listeners by calling on someone to give the gist of what was just discussed, discovered, or questioned. If the class seems stuck on the questions, provide an opportunity for students to discuss in pairs.

With all the diverse learners in our classrooms, there is a strong need for teachers to learn and experiment with new scaffolding strategies. I often say to teachers I support that they have to slow down in order to go quickly. Scaffolding a lesson may, in fact, mean that it takes longer to teach, but the end product is of far greater quality and the experience much more rewarding for all involved.