After reading "Providing Scaffolds for Student Learning" in our Smagorinsky text, I have really changed my thinking about scaffolding. At the beginning of the chapter he begins the reading with a quote from "Integrating Visual and Language Arts" that resonated with me: "It took me so much longer last year to plan [during student teaching]. And I think it was because I was thinking in terms of, many times, 'What do I need to teach today?' And I've shifted that now to, 'What do my kids need to learn?'" (Smagorinsky 19)
During my student teaching experience, I have struggled with the planning aspect. What should I teach? What lessons will engage my students as well as cover the standards? How much scaffolding should I incorporate? I ask myself these questions on a daily basis. However, after reading the above quotation from a student teacher who changed her thinking, I have begun to think seriously about what my students need to learn.
We have all learned about the "I do", "We do", "You do" approach to scaffolding. This approach is great of course. Modeling is extremely important, especially for my CWC Freshmen. But how do I move them beyond simply mimicking me to actually generating their own ideas about how to do the task?
Smagorinsky encourages the flexible scaffold: "...the teacher does not simply expect students to do things as modeled, but encourages them to generate new ideas about how to do the task. The purpose, then, is not to get students to mimic the teacher faithfully but to use the teacher's modeling as an opportunity to learn a new way of thinking about something." (25) I think this is great. Of course we all want our students to generate new ideas and not regurgitate the teacher's ideas and style.
The one idea from this chapter that I would love to try in my freshmen classes is the double-column response log. We have done something similar to this and I have modeled for them but they have basically mimicked my model. For emerging learners, some find it difficult to ask questions about literature. Many of them have been given comprehension based assignments (I am definitely guilty of this) instead of assignments that will get them thinking about the text and asking higher level questions. If I can get these students to find important passages from the text on their own and also get them to share their opinions and questions about the text, I feel that they would benefit greatly; they will see literature not as something to endure but something to be enjoyed.
My question is this: How do you create flexible scaffolds with emerging learners? Emerging learners need direct scaffolding but I would love to become more flexible and get my students to generate their own ideas. Any ideas?
