‘Unpacking’ Scaffolding: Identifying Discourse and Multimodal Strategies that Support Learning

In this paper the sociocultural notion of ‘scaffolding’ and the way in which various ‘scaffolding’ strategies support students’ learning are examined through classroom data. A distinction is made between scaffolding at a macro level, consisting of a planned, ‘designed-in’ approach to a unit of work in a subject discipline and the lessons that constitute it, and contingent scaffolding that operates at a micro level or ‘at the point of need’. By drawing on Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) theory it has been possible to articulate the kinds of discourse and multimodal strategies that constitute the nature of scaffolding and then examine the ways in which these function in the discourse to support student learning in the local and immediate context. In addition, this paper identifies an Induction genre that provides foundational understandings about the study of history for apprentice historians. This is supported by two post-foundational lessons that form a Macrogenre. This Macrogenre reinforces the application of focus questions that are fundamental to historical study and an approach to answering these questions that is consistent with the methodology of the subject.

[1]  A. N. Leont’ev.  The Problem of Activity in Psychology , 1974 .

[2]  Annemarie Sullivan Palincsar,et al.  The Role of Dialogue in Providing Scaffolded Instruction , 1986 .

[3]  Neil Mercer,et al.  Common Knowledge: The Development of Understanding in the Classroom , 1987 .

[4]  J. Bruner.  Actual minds, possible worlds , 1985 .

[5]  J. Tough.  Talk for teaching and learning , 1979 .

[6]  M. Hedegaard,et al.  The zone of proximal development as basis for instruction , 1990 .

[7]  G. Wells,et al.  Learning for Life in the 21st Century , 2002 .

[8]  Gordon Wells.  Inquiry as an Orientation for Learning, Teaching and Teacher Education , 2008 .

[9]  Gordon Wells,et al.  Reevaluating the IRF sequence: A proposal for the articulation of theories of activity and discourse for the analysis of teaching and learning in the classroom , 1993 .

[10]  Neil Mercer,et al.  Words and Minds : How We Use Language to Think Together , 2000 .

[11]  Neil Mercer,et al.  'Scaffolding': learning in the classroom , 1992 .

[12]  P. Gibbons.  Mediating Language Learning: Teacher Interactions With ESL Students in a Content-Based Classroom , 2003 .

[13]  Denis Newman,et al.  The Construction Zone: Working for Cognitive Change in School , 1989 .

[14]  S. Puntambekar,et al.  Tools for Scaffolding Students in a Complex Learning Environment: What Have We Gained and What Have We Missed? , 2005 .

[15]  Pauline Gibbons,et al.  Classroom Talk and the Learning of New Registers in a Second Language , 1998 .

[16]  Lev Vygotsky.  Mind in society , 1978 .

[17]  Basil Bernstein,et al.  Pedagogy, symbolic control, and identity : theory, research, critique , 1997 .

[18]  Jeannett Martin,et al.  English Text: System and structure , 1992 .

[19]  G. Wells.  Dialogic Inquiry: Towards a Socio-cultural Practice and Theory of Education , 1999 .

[20]  Michael Halliday,et al.  An Introduction to Functional Grammar , 1985 .

[21]  Sarah Michaels,et al.  Discourse, learning, and schooling: Shifting participant frameworks: orchestrating thinking practices in group discussion , 1996 .

[22]  Peter Smagorinsky,et al.  Constructing Meaning in the Disciplines: Reconceptualizing Writing across the Curriculum as Composing across the Curriculum , 1995, American Journal of Education.

[23]  Deborah Hicks.  Discourse, learning, and schooling: Contextual inquiries: a discourse-oriented study of classroom learning , 1996 .