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[skeletonsincloset]

It appears that high school teachers aren't doing such a hot job at edutainment either:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/EDUCATION/02/28/students.survey.reut/index.html

And, just like our students who get bored, fall asleep, find something "better" to do during class, skip or talk on the phone, these high schoolers believe that in spite of not doing the work, going to class or paying attention, they will go on to college. Joy.

[bio_prof_]

<deleted rant with foul language>

There is so much to rant about, I just don't know where to begin...

So I'll keep it to this. I hate it when people say that what they are learning is "not relevant."

How do they know what knowledge will be relevant?

Do they have a crystal ball? Can they predict what they will need to know for the rest of their lives, with such accuracy that they can dismiss reams of information? How do they propose getting relevant information?

What exactly is the boring subject matter irrelevant to?

[mountain_ivy]

As many unprepared students as I get, my sympathies are with k-12 teachers.  They can't flunk students; they can't kick them out of class; they have to deal with parents; they have 35 students in a writing or math claass; they teach 5 classes daily......  I'd shoot myself.

[bio_prof_]

Second ab1997by.

And part of NCLB dictates that all students will graduate from high school by 2014.

It really (delete foul language), uh, makes me mad that teachers are getting blamed and carrying this ridiculous load.  I think blamers can only get away with it because teachers are working too hard to defend themselves.

<back to foul-language rant>

[au_fait]

It's the whole "entitlement" issue. Our students often believe they deserve grades for simply being in class, as often happens in high school. Furthermore, some believe that they will go to college because that is what comes after high school, not because they need to learn something that isn't taught in high school.

[ms_collegiality]

I was recently at a seminar where college comp teachers and high school English teachers were talking about what we expected high school students to be able to do upon entering freshman composition.  It was enlightening.  One of the readings we discussed said that 80% of polled college instructors rated curiosity as the most important quality students bring to learning.  I shared that after assigning a really pretty easy and interesting reading about how the media skews our values, I was (amidst many excellent reading responses, I admit) getting some that said, "This is boring and I don't see the point of reading it."  I shared that I felt these comments reflected more on the students who wrote them than on anything having to do with the reading itself.

YET, one of the high school teachers attending the seminar, after listening to my anecdote, asked me if I had "scaffolded the reading to make it more accessible to the students."  I felt like, one, she had just blamed me for these students' lack of interest, and two, I should ask her if she needed our readings at the seminar "scaffolded."  The answer, of course, is no.  We jumped into these readings with a mutual trust that they would be interesting and relevant.  Yet I am supposed to "scaffold" for college freshmen.

Tell me I have some grounds here . . .

[smart_e_pantz]

What the hell is scaffolding?

[ms_collegiality]

Exactly.  I had never heard the term before.  Apparently it's the hot new term for "breaking them in slowly and gently with lots of introductory information."

Please, someone else spell it out.

[acrimone]

It's what it sounds like...setting up a framework of knowledge around a reading/lecture/whatever that gives the students support (in terms of background) for engaging it, much like scaffolding on a building.

It's also 89% bullsh*t, but whatever.

[halfpint]

Scaffolding is a term from Vygotsky's theory of cognitive development (sometimes called his Sociocultural Theory).   He believed that learning occurs most rapidly and successfully when the learner and the teacher are engaged in a process he called guided participation.  The teacher creates such a learning environment by asking questions, pointing out a detail, etc., to get the student thinking.  The idea is that the student learns more from this interaction than he could just sitting there alone with the material.  He didn't mean that the teacher should make things easy.

The idea is that we all have a range of skills that are just beyond our current reach.  He called that the zone of proximal development (zpd).  When the teacher structures the learning (scaffolds), she takes the learner into hu's zone of proximal development.  Therefore, the student is able to accomplish more with the teacher's guidance than hu could have accomplished on hu's own.

I'm sure you scaffold quite a bit in you classes already, ms_c.  When we come up with probing questions to get the ball rolling, when we notice a misconception but choose to ask another question instead of just immediately disclosing the correct answer, we are guiding students into the zpd.  We're in the zone!

Another example -- Scaffolding occurs all the time in childhood.  Think of the ways you guide a child to learn how to tie hu's shoes or put a puzzle together.  You don't just do it for hu.  You also don't just expect hu to figure it out on hu's own.  You provide some guidance along the way.

It's not bull**it!  The teacher took Vygotsky out of context and applied his concept incorrectly!  People do this with Piaget, too.  Sigh.

[rattusdomesticus]

It's what it sounds like...setting up a framework of knowledge around a reading/lecture/whatever that gives the students support (in terms of background) for engaging it, much like scaffolding on a building.

It's also 89% bullsh*t, but whatever.

I'm not sure when this term got hot, but I've been using it for about six years. A senior colleague passed on the concept and when I started building lessons with context first, and then manageable pieces (that involved feedback/assessment), I finally knew what to call it. The term may be in vogue (or past that point), but dang it I was using it before. I refuse to give it up. It does describe ways of spoonfeeding undergrads material and getting less "spit up." And because I don't think I'll get a fabulous response with the baby analogy, I'm going to use the term "scaffolding." Accuse me of being shallow. At least I'm not like some administrators I know who jump on each educational trend, twisting and shifting them to use as a whip on faculty. Hrrrumpph.

[halfpint]

I'm not sure when this term got hot, but I've been using it for about six years. A senior colleague passed on the concept and when I started building lessons with context first, and then manageable pieces (that involved feedback/assessment), I finally knew what to call it. The term may be in vogue (or past that point), but dang it I was using it before. I refuse to give it up. It does describe ways of spoonfeeding undergrads material and getting less "spit up." And because I don't think I'll get a fabulous response with the baby analogy, I'm going to use the term "scaffolding." Accuse me of being shallow. At least I'm not like some administrators I know who jump on each educational trend, twisting and shifting them to use as a whip on faculty. Hrrrumpph.

I'm not an expert on Vygotsky, although I describe his theory in some of my classes.  He did most of his work in the 1920s-30s, but because of political issues in his native Russia at the time, he was blacklisted and it was hard for anyone to get their hands on his work.  As I understand it, translations of his work did not become widely available in the U.S. until the 1960s. 

As for when the term became popular among teachers, I don't know.  I do recall reading some research conducted in the 1980s about the effectiveness of scaffolding in the classroom.  Of course, by the time this trickles down into regular use, the concepts might get garbled.

[gennimom]

High school teachers can't fail students? Was that what I was doing wrong?

Sorry, but if the student didn't do the work, they did not pass my class. I got questioned about it when I flunked 4 students one year. When I explained that they refused to do anything to help themselves, the grades stood. I never saw a parent about it either. What was bad was, I had a set of twins. One passed, one failed. The parents reportedly did not know what to think.

But oh, don't get me started on NCLB. The premise behind it is good, but reality is making it hard, if not impossible to attain. All students may be able to graduate by 2014, but it is only going to be those that don't drop out. I've seen too many students that will never be able to meet the requirements. Oh, and more students are getting designated "learning disabled" to keep them off the NCLB radar. I could go on, but I'll shut up now.

[zharkov]

Getting all students to pass HS will work out fine.  We just need to make sure they have the same HS experience as Pres Bush, who went to Phillips Academy.  12 students per class and per pupil expenditure of $24K.  Students go to school 8 to 8, tutors for homework, etc. etc.  It will work out just fine.

[cronopio]

Getting all students to pass HS will work out fine.  We just need to make sure they have the same HS experience as Pres Bush, who went to Phillips Academy.  12 students per class and per pupil expenditure of $24K.  Students go to school 8 to 8, tutors for homework, etc. etc.  It will work out just fine.

Now THERE'S a scaffold I can climb! Amen, says the choir of educators.