The online student population is becoming increasingly diverse and complex. Clinefelter, Aslanian, and Magda (2019) note that recent trends show online students are getting younger, however, this trend doesn’t mean that younger students are simply replacing older ones. Rather, online education has grown in such a way that its students represent broader spectrum of ages, work experiences, and educational backgrounds.
Since online instructors can’t physically see students, supporting this diverse group can be challenging and it is becoming more difficult to identifying when students are struggling, making it challenging to support each student. To address this, designing your course with scaffolding in mind can be highly effective. In this article, we’ll explore scaffolding—what it is, why it’s important, and how you can integrate it into your online course design.
What Is Scaffolding?
Scaffolding is an instructional strategy that progressively moves students toward greater independence and understanding during the learning process. Just as scaffolding helps builders reach new heights during construction, instructional scaffolding aids students in navigating coursework and completing tasks they otherwise might not have been able to. This idea is rooted in Vygotsky’s (1978) concept of the zone of proximal development, which focuses on three stages of learning:
- What the learner cannot do
- What the learner can do with assistance
- What the learner can do unaided
Caruana (2012) notes that, to provide students with consistent support, “it’s important to determine the area (zone) between what a student can accomplish unaided and what that same student can accomplish with assistance.” Effective scaffolding provides support through instructional materials, practice activities, and other course elements, guiding students from assisted tasks to independent mastery. In terms of the zone of proximal development, scaffolding is essentially what takes students from what they can do with assistance to what they can do unaided.
Jumaat and Tasir (2014) identify four types of scaffolding that can occur in online courses:
- Procedural Scaffolding: Helps students navigate and use course tools effectively.
- Conceptual Scaffolding: Guides students in prioritizing fundamental concepts.
- Strategic Scaffolding: Offers alternative approaches to solving learning problems.
- Metacognitive Scaffolding: Encourages self-assessment and reflective thinking.
Each type of scaffolding can be essential to your students’ success. Procedural scaffolding, for instance, can play a critical role in ensuring that students can use the tools in your learning management system, and conceptual scaffolding can help guide students’ consumption of more complex materials. Similarly, strategic scaffolding helps students find a new way around a roadblock, and metacognitive scaffolding encourages them to take a moment to evaluate their progress in the course.
Why Should I Scaffold My Course?
As you might imagine, scaffolding requires additional effort on an instructor’s part, however, the benefits make the work worthwhile. Cho and Cho (2016) note that some students may hesitate or avoid seeking help, and scaffolding can combat this challenge by integrating support directly into the course content.
Northern Illinois University’s Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center (n.d.) highlights several ways students benefit from instructional scaffolding:
- Encourages deep learning and discovery
- Helps students become more effective learners
- Increases student success rates
- Individualizes instruction
- Creates opportunities for peer learning
Scaffolding can also benefit the instructor by streamlining student support. By designing a course that offers students guidance or assistance as they need it, you increase the likelihood that students will independently explore solutions to questions and issues they have. This frees you to tackle other tasks such as grading, responding to discussion forum posts, and addressing additional questions that might arise.
How Can I Scaffold My Course?
Caruana (2012) suggests that when determining how to scaffold or what to scaffold, “a good rule of thumb is the higher the stakes, the more scaffolding you need to include. In other words, the heavier the weight, the stronger the support.” Here are some practical strategies to begin scaffolding your course:
Breaking Down Assessments
One of the more widely known approaches to scaffolding involves breaking assessments into more manageable subtasks. More often than not, the assessments you’d want to break down are summative assessments (the higher-stakes assessments that instructors typically use as a benchmark to measure student learning). By dividing up these assessments into smaller components, you save students from having to pool a tremendous amount of time and energy at the benchmark point in your course. Divide large assessments into smaller, manageable tasks. For instance, instead of a final essay, require students to submit a literature review, outline, and draft.
This approach allows for feedback and improvements along the way. If students were to write the essay during the last module of the course, they wouldn’t have much opportunity for revision, correction, or improvement. However, when the same assessment is scaffolded throughout the course, the instructor can take corrective measures such as pointing out dated research in a literature review, addressing poor structure in the outline, and catching misused sources in a rough draft. Essentially, the instructor would be able to help students correct these issues as they arise, making it more likely that students will meet their learning objectives when they submit that final essay.
Aligning Assessments
Ensure that assessments are connected to course content and progressively prepare students for future tasks. Even if you’re using several different assessments (rather than one broken-up summative assessment), consider the relationship between your assessments and whether they prepare students for other course elements. Ideally, assessments should work together to gradually prepare students for what they’ll be doing at a later date, which can help build confidence and familiarity and establish relevance.
For instance, if the last module of an education course requires students to write a classroom management plan, some of the course’s discussion forums could ask students to consider different classroom management styles and critique case studies involving classroom management plans. Although these activities don’t build directly toward the summative assessment like the example in the previous section, they scaffold the instruction by helping students consider important factors that will impact their final submission.
Providing Examples
Offer clear examples of high-quality and lower-quality work. Explain the criteria that make each example effective or ineffective to guide students in meeting your expectations. By providing examples of the work students need to do to earn a desirable grade, you establish a model they can refer to as they create or complete their assessments.
Providing examples helps students compare their work to a sample that incorporates your expectations for the assessment. This increases the likelihood that students will be able to identify their deficiencies, make corrections, and ultimately master your course’s learning objectives. However, simply providing examples may not be sufficient. Whether you provide examples of exemplary work or lackluster work, Sardo and Sindelar (2019) suggest that you also explain the criteria that make each example good or bad. When you do so, students won’t just blindly model what they see; rather, they’ll engage in a more thorough process of determining what makes their work good or bad.
Encouraging Metacognitive Strategies
The ultimate goal of scaffolding is for students to be able to master your course’s learning objectives without aid, and a student’s ability to independently identify his or her strengths and weaknesses is a critical step toward that type of mastery. With this in mind, one scaffolding method you can employ is reflection: requiring students to look back at their work and identify what they’re doing well and where they’re struggling. Huang (2017) gives three tips for developing this type of activity for your online course:
- Begin reflection where the learners are. It’s important to be intentional about the goal of a reflective exercise. Set expectations and clarify assumptions with students so that everyone is on the same page about the activity’s goals.
- Provide scaffolding to suit your learners’ reflective continuum. That’s right — we’re talking about scaffolding the scaffolding. Essentially, some students might struggle with reflection and need some guidance. For these students, Huang (2017) suggests using a few guiding questions using the following strategies:
- Recalling
- Recapturing (capturing emotions, accomplishments, challenges)
- Relating (identifying connections with previous materials or experiences)
- Rationalizing (identifying patterns, creating meaning)
- Redirecting (thinking about the future)
- Give learners the freedom to experiment with different modalities of reflection. Reflection is a deeply personal exercise, so it’s appropriate to give students the chance to reflect in a form that’s most effective for them. With this in mind, consider allowing for different types of submissions, such as videos, podcasts, or mind maps.
By encouraging students to identify their strengths and weaknesses, you help them become aware of their regular accomplishments and struggles, which can help them focus their efforts accordingly as they progress through other parts of your course.
Chunking Materials
Break down large content into smaller, digestible pieces. This method prevents cognitive overload and provides students with opportunities to reflect and seek help as needed. Chunking is commonly considered a best practice of course design, and Schutt (2003) argues that it can be an effective scaffolding tool as well. By separating a large piece of text or a long video into smaller components, you provide students with breaks that they can use to reflect, question, or even reach out for help if they need it.
Conclusion
As online courses serve a growing and diverse student population, scaffolding becomes essential in addressing the varied needs of your learners. By incorporating scaffolding techniques, you enhance students’ ability to succeed and master learning objectives. Key takeaways include:
- Scaffolding helps students progress from needing assistance to working independently.
- It provides necessary support in an online context where struggles might not be visible.
- Effective scaffolding strategies, such as breaking down tasks and providing examples, create structured support and foster student growth.
With thoughtful application of scaffolding, you can better support your students and enhance their learning experience in your online course.
References
Caruana,V. (2012). Scaffolding student learning: Tips for getting started. Retrieved from http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/instructional-design/scaffolding-student-learning-tips-for-getting-started/
Cho, M.-H., & Cho, Y. (2016). Online instructors’ use of scaffolding strategies to promote interactions: A scale development study. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 17(6). Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v17i6.2816
Clinefelter, D. L., Aslanian, C. B., & Magda, A. J. (2019). Online college students 2019: Comprehensive data on demands and preferences. Louisville, KY: Wiley edu, LLC
Huang, L. (2017, November 6). Three ideas for implementing learner reflection. Retrieved from https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-and-learning/three-ideas-implementing-learner-reflection/
Jumaat, N. F., & Tasir, Z. (2014). Instructional scaffolding in online learning environment: A meta-analysis. Proceedings of the IEEE, 74–77. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269033099_Instructional_Scaffolding_in_Online_Learning_Environment_A_Meta-analysis
Northern Illinois University. (n.d.). Instructional scaffolding to support learning. Retrieved from https://www.niu.edu/facdev/_pdf/guide/strategies/instructional_scaffolding_to_improve_learning.pdf
Sardo, C., & Sindelar, A. (2019). Scaffolding online student success. Retrieved from https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/scaffolding-online-student-success/
Schutt, M. (2003). Scaffolding for online learning environments: Instructional design strategies that provide online learner support. Educational Technology, 43(6), 28–35. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/44428859
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
