Scenario13.

Scaffolding student learning

Note: The scenario below address student learning scaffolds (supporting/guiding) and self organised learning. We suggest reading the articles below before commencing with the scenarios: McLoughlin, C. and Marshall, L. 2000. Scaffolding: A model for learner support in an online teaching environment. In A. Herrmann and M.M. Kulski (Eds), Flexible Futures in Tertiary Teaching. Proceedings of the 9th Annual Teaching Learning Forum, 2-4 February 2000. Perth: Curtin University of Technology. http://lsn.curtin.edu.au/tlf/tlf2000/mcloughlin2.html ; and Paramythis, A. and and Cristea, A. 2008. Towards Adaptation Languages for Adaptive Collaborative Learning Support, CEUR Workshop Proceedings. Vol 384. http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-384/FULLPAPER-p6.pdf

Scenario
(Adapted from Lindsay Lipscomb, Janet Swanson, and Anne West, Scaffolding, The University of Georgia)

Level 3 undergraduate Graphic Design students have been studying typography. Throughout their study, students have focused the influence of culture, historical perspectives, communication and branding on typography and graphic design. As a culminating activity for this study on typography, the students are going to prepare some type of individually selected project demonstrating their knowledge of the influences on typography and graphic design. The tutors decide that each student should have an individual blog. The assignment is in the form of a client pitch brief, where a prospective client has asked a number of firms to pitch graphic design concepts for a new product launch. Typography is a key element of the project.. The assignment is summarised as follows: The students are tasked with creating a product design which features a new typographical font. They are to cite, and share via posts, the development of their font Students are to document, via their blog, what has informed the design: historical contexts, cultural influences, rationale, etc Students are to evidence a reflective practice Students should make comments on each others posts at least once a week

The tutors make suggestions regarding the types of content they can include on their blog posts. Some choose to post still images of their work through various stages of development, with accompanying text and links to supply evidence of their design process. Some choose to upload moving images. Others
This resource was created by University College Falmouth and released as an open educational resource for University College Falmouth through the Blogging For Educational Environments (B4EE) project. The B4EE project is funded by University College Falmouth's Learning and Teaching Enhancement Programme. 2012 University College Falmouth

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choose to use storyboards, along with still images, while a few of the students decide to use video diaries to evidence their practice. One student focuses on interviewing professional practitioners. David decides to prepare a multimedia blog which will incorporate digital pictures and video clips of his work through its various stages. He has successfully written the text for his blog posts but has been unable to insert the digital pictures from his disk. One tutor notices that David is experiencing frustration with his inability to insert the pictures. She approaches to offer help, not to complete the task for David, but rather to provide support and to help him achieve his objective on his own. The tutor thinks aloud as she offers help: Lets see. I want to insert a picture into the blog post from a disk. I need to go to the upload image button in the blogging toolbar since thats what I want to do. Now I have to tell the computer where to find the picture I want. Since the picture is on a disk, Ill select from file. Then Ill click 'insert' and viola`! My picture is there. Now all I have to do is save it. As the tutor talks through the steps, David carefully follows her prompts and completes each step. He beams as he sees the selected picture on his blog post. For the next image, the tutor watches as David goes through the steps, questioning him with leading questions when he hesitates, and listens while he quietly goes through the process sequence to himself to perform the task. Again, he beams with excitement as the blog post displays the selected picture. The tutor moves away from the computer and allows Patrick to insert the next picture on his own. Seeing that he is successful, she moves on to assist another student. Later, when another student, Melissa, needs assistance with inserting a picture to her blog posts, the tutor asks David to be a peer tutor to her. He further expands his learning by explaining the steps to Melissa and by teaching her the same chant he used to complete the steps to insert a picture in blog posts. Through her support and facilitation, the tutor helped David master a skill and achieve independence through carefully designed instruction called scaffolding. This process of scaffolding is much like the traditional definition of scaffolding as a temporary support system used until the task is complete and the building stands without support. Such is the concept of scaffolding. Immediate support is given to students in order to help them achieve skill or task independence. This assistance is a temporary framework provided by the teacher or a more knowledgeable person to assist students in performing a task they otherwise cannot accomplish without assistance. Support is provided to the learner and then gradually removed so that the student can become a self-regulated, independent learner. Although the teacher assumes much of the control during scaffolded instruction, the ultimate goal of instruction is covert, independent self-regulatory learning (Ellis et al. 1994).

This resource was created by University College Falmouth and released as an open educational resource for University College Falmouth through the Blogging For Educational Environments (B4EE) project. The B4EE project is funded by University College Falmouth's Learning and Teaching Enhancement Programme. 2012 University College Falmouth

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Licence. When repurposing this resource please acknowledge the B4EE project.

Key questions
How will you boost student confidence in your blogging assignment? How will you first introduce students to tasks they can perform with little or no assistance? What strategies will you use to improve self-efficacy? How will you motivate students to advance to more advanced levels within your assignment? How will you guard against students giving up due to repeated failures? What clues will you look for that students are mastering the task(s) required fro the project?

This resource was created by University College Falmouth and released as an open educational resource for University College Falmouth through the Blogging For Educational Environments (B4EE) project. The B4EE project is funded by University College Falmouth's Learning and Teaching Enhancement Programme. 2012 University College Falmouth

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Licence. When repurposing this resource please acknowledge the B4EE project.