Motivation

Explore the nature of the scaffolding process in which someone with more experience helps someone with less experience to complete a task that the less experienced person would not be able to complete on their own.

Key Elements of Scaffolding

Wood et al. argue that scaffolding is an essential part of human learning for a large range of tasks, such as communication and movement, but focuses on problem solving and higher-order skill acquisition. Within this focus, scaffolding

• is provided in a social context by an expert, instructor, or person with more experience to a novice or person with less experience
• is individualized to the learner yet likely follows a common structure among learners
• enables the novice to “solve a problem, carry out a task, or achieve a goal which would be beyond his unassisted effort” (p.90)
• allows the learners to complete as much of the task themselves as possible (i.e., the expert does not model the complete task for the novice to observe and imitate)
• controls the parts of a task or reduces a problem solving space that would inhibit the novice’s success so that the novice can focus on components within his capability.

Wood et al. hypothesize that scaffolding helps learners to master a task more quickly.
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