Pedagogical Scaffolding Research Articles

Barriers to constructing experiential learning claims through reflective narratives

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify the barriers that higher education (HE) work-based learners face when constructing experiential learning claims through reflective narratives. Design/methodology/approach A survey of 38 part-time, HE undergraduate work-based learners was conducted. A questionnaire was designed comprising Likert scale and open ended questions to capture students’ experiences of constructing experiential learning claims. Findings The study found that students experience several learning barriers including the diversity and complexity of reflective learning models, the solitary nature of reflective learning, problems articulating tacit knowledge in writing, emotional barriers to reflective learning, accurately recalling “historic” learning experiences and difficulties in developing the meta-competence of learning to learn. Practical implications Consideration should be given to assisting learners to develop the skills necessary to select and use reflective learning models that best fit particular experiential learning contexts. Learners should be encouraged to undertake group reflection in the classroom and in the workplace to enable them to write critical reflective narratives that have integrity. There should be less reliance on written reflective narratives to evidence tacit knowledge with consideration given to other methods such as practical demonstrations, videos presentations and interviews. Originality/value The study contributes to knowledge of the barriers that students face when constructing experiential learning claims through reflective narratives. It proposes an outline pedagogical scaffolding framework to assist learners to develop recognition of prior learning (RPL) claims to enable them to maximise opportunities for claiming credits through universities RPL processes.

Documenting and Discovering Learning: Reimagining the Work of the Literacy Narrative

We suggest that literacy narratives can be an important part of a curriculum designed to encourage students to understand themselves as developing learners and students. We know that there is great potential for literacy narratives—for narrativizing—when invited within a scaffolded curriculum of collaborative narrative inquiry. We place literacy narratives in the service of documenting learning—that is, within a pedagogical scaffolding designed to lead students through a series of moves that feature inquiry and discovery (about literacy). As such, the literacy narrative that emerges as most important is the final reflective narrative: the one we have spent all semester preparing students to write. That act of deferral creates an opportunity to put the literacy narrative (LN) assignment to different earlier use as a means for creating an ongoing, experiential literacy-learning narrative that will be realized as a reflective narrative: one we call the experiential-learning documentary (ELD).

Behavior, perceptions and learning experience of undergraduates using social technologies during internship

Social technologies such as social networking sites, Wikis and blogs have gained popularity not only in social communication but also in other areas, such as in enhancing learning experience among students in tertiary education. This study investigated how blogs and Facebook scaffolded students’ learning during their internships in tertiary education. A mix-method approach was employed to examine students’ perceptions of blogs and Facebook in improving their internship learning experience. The results showed that blogs and Facebook encouraged students and facilitated their engagement in problem solving, information sharing and knowledge construction during their internships. In particular, Facebook showed more promising results, assisting students in reflecting on their experiences. Moreover, students acknowledged that Facebook was a better platform for online interaction and collaborative learning than blogs. This study provides empirical evidence for the use of social media tools in pedagogical scaffolding and collaborative learning during internships.

Pedagogical scaffolding: Resourcing children’s amazing capacity to learn and uptake language

Pedagogical scaffolding: Resourcing children’s amazing capacity to learn and uptake language

Developing Multimodal Literacy Through Teaching the Critical Viewing of Films in Singapore

AbstractThe changing nature of communication has accentuated the need to develop multimodal literacy in students. Although the conventional way of asking a series of questions to elicit students’ comprehension has helped build reading and comprehension skills, teachers could provide more support in the form of the language, pedagogical scaffolds, and technological tools to develop students’ critical viewing of multimodal texts. Working with teachers from a secondary school in Singapore, researchers from the Ministry of Education in Singapore trialed an instructional approach to teach the critical viewing of films. The approach is informed by systemic functional theory, multimodality, and media studies. The authors describe the instructional approach and the study conducted to develop multimodal literacy in adolescent students.

Czech Youth Summer Camps: More than playing games in nature

Summer camps for children and youth are organized in different countries around the world. These camps vary in length and also in the sport or outdoor activities framing them. Czech summer camps, tábory, have a long history dating back to the beginning of the 20th century. Neuman, Turčová and Martin (2007) describe the specific cultural development of tábory, summer camps for children and youth in the Czech Republic with an anthropological focus. This current article examines the camp conditions, preparation and the role of camp leaders in the holistic program implementation of the turistika activities and outdoor games for these programs. It presents the findings of a survey of 69 leaders of the four main not-for-profit youth organisations undertaking summer camps in the Czech Republic: ATOM (Association of Touristic Youth Clubs), Junák (scouting), Pionýr, and Liga lesní moudrosti (woodcraft). The findings highlight the important role of the qualified, experienced and intrinsically motivated volunteer leaders who spend the entire preceeding year preparing these two to three week summer camps held in basic conditions. The holistic program design provides a pedagogical scaffolding and then culmination for the group of children, who have played outdoor games in natural settings and taken part in turistika activities throughout the year. The implications of these findings are that the ‘summer camp’ activities are unique to the Czech Republic and provide opportunities for children to ‘experience the natural environment’, and can also provide inspiration for the scaffolding and development of outdoor adventures and environmental programs internationally.

Meta-evaluation of History and English Language Pedagogy Study Programme with Focus on Transformational Learning

Higher education internalization, professional mobility and competitive participation in the international labour market requires the new 21st century competences that involve the transformational change of future teachers, academic staff and the teacher training institution itself. Integrated content and foreign language (CLIL) study programmes create preconditions for such transformational learning based on cooperative learning/teaching, critical thinking, formative assessment and reflection. Simulations, case studies, problem solving, project work, research based learning develop students’ ability to work cooperatively and produce collectively. Pedagogical scaffolding strategies, constructive feedback and formative assessment enable students monitor their progress and plan their further learning. Systematic reflection helps understand better meaningfulness and complexity of the teaching profession, directs one’s transformation and equips students with lifelong learning skills. CLIL study programs prove to have high transformational impact on in-service teachers’ conceptual thinking, procedural skills and encourage reassessing the validity of learning. Ability to direct one’s change empowers future teachers to construct and reconstruct their knowledge based on their experience and needs, critically evaluate educational and work environment, transfer the acquired knowledge and skills to new contexts and actively participate in the reconstruction of the changing society.

Evaluation of enhanced educational experiences using interactive videos and web technologies: pedagogical and architectural considerations

Nowadays, teachers and students utilize different ICT devices for conducting innovative and educational activities from anywhere at any time. The enactment of these activities relies on robust communication and computational infrastructures used for supporting technological devices enabling better accessibility to educational resources and pedagogical scaffolds, wherever and whenever necessary. In this paper, we present EDU.Tube: an interactive environment that relies on web and mobile solutions offered to teachers and students for authoring and incorporating educational interactions at specific moments along the time line of occasional YouTube video-clips. The teachers and students could later experience these authored artefacts while interacting from their stationary or mobile devices. We describe our efforts related to the design, deployment and evaluation of an educational activity supported by the EDU.Tube environment. Furthermore, we illustrate the specific teachers’ and students’ efforts practiced along the different phases of this educational activity. The evaluation of this activity and results are presented, followed by a discussion of these findings, as well as some recommendations for future research efforts further elaborating on EDU.Tube’s aspects in relation to learning analytics.

Young students using iPads: App design and content influences on their learning pathways

The past few years have seen an array of new technological gadgets arrive on the education scene, perhaps the best known of these being Apple's i-Device range, particularly the iPad. Such devices have been described by some as ‘game changers’, and promoted as a key component to stimulating much-needed educational reform. However, history suggests the hype and rhetoric surrounding these technological innovations has failed to match the reality of their performance, in action. Some have attributed this failure to a lack of alignment by teachers of pedagogical models with the potential of technologies, while others argue that claims made are simply unrealistic sales hype. Regardless, schools continue to be seduced by these new technologies, purchasing ever increasing amounts based on the alleged learning promises they offer their students.This study presents an innovative approach to exploring student interaction with iPad apps, and is an attempt to begin to unpack factors that affect their learning pathways, in an effort to improve the educational potential of these popular devices. It focuses specifically on design and content features of apps selected by an experienced teacher to enhance literacy, numeracy and problem-solving capabilities of her 5 year old students. Findings reveal a complex matrix of influencing factors. These include the effect of embedded pedagogical scaffolds (eg., modelling, reflection time), corrective and formative feedback, text-to-speech functionality, imposed interaction parameters, impediments (eg., web links, advertisements, buying content) and the entertainment/education balance. Arguments are made for researchers, teachers and developers to work together and adopt methodologies such as that introduced in this article, to gather data to radically improve the design of apps used by young students for learning.

Developing a pedagogical-technical framework to improve creative writing

There are many evidences of motivational and educational benefits from the use of learning software. However, there is a lack of study with regards to the teaching of creative writing. This paper aims to bridge the following gaps: first, the need for a proper framework for scaffolding creative writing through learning software; second, the lack of technical scaffolding in creative writing learning software; third, the need for customizable learning software that requires little programming knowledge; and fourth, personalized learning. To develop our initial framework, Merrill’s First Principles of Instruction is used as pedagogical scaffold and story setting, characters and story structure as component-based technical scaffolds. These were tested in a low-fidelity prototype. User testing indicates an increase in creativity, improvement in story development, clarity of ideas and language skills. We also derive two design principles, i.e. identity and interactivity. Based on these findings, a high-fidelity prototype, named Storyworld, is developed. T-test analyses on results indicate significant improvement in overall creative writing skills, as well as grammar, structure and creativity. The prototype utilizes component-based design in the technical scaffolds, which is encapsulated in a tidy framework that can be personalized for individual learning needs. Our most important contribution is a proper framework combining technical scaffolds and pedagogical scaffolds that not only makes learning more effective and motivating for students, but is also cost-effective in redesigning and personalizing lessons and systems.

Extended metaphors for pedagogy: using sameness and difference

This article looks at the use of extended metaphor in teaching. Our case studies as two teachers using metaphor in different settings show how metaphor is experienced by learners to different pedagogical effect. The article demonstrates that metaphor can be used not only for the similarity between vehicle and target systems, but also for the difference. In the subject of electronics, extended metaphor (water, waves and webs) scaffolds learning by merit of the similarity of the vehicle system to the target. However, when teaching doctoral students to improve their writing skills, extended metaphor exploits the difference between vehicle and target. In this case the frustration of academic challenge is defused by using metaphors that are homely and ordinary in contrast to the formal academic genre of thesis writing. Our experience in using metaphors to teach provides support for the theory that they may be monistic (forgotten once they have fulfilled the pedagogical scaffolding task) or dualistic (remembered because both systems remain in play). The article prompts other higher education teachers to more consciously consider the potential of metaphor as a pedagogical aid.

Mentoring two student teachers: mentors’ perceptions of peer placements

Research on peer placements suggests that partnering two preservice teachers with a mentor provides a better, more supportive context for learning to teach. As extant research has focused more on student teachers’ development, less is known about mentors’ perceptions and experiences. This qualitative study focuses on seven mentor teachers who have mentored one–three years in peer placements to provide a textured understanding of their perceptions and experiences. Results indicate: (a) peer collaboration provides important pedagogical scaffolding that helps student teachers plan and implement complex pedagogies; (b) peer–mentor observation helps student teachers feel more efficacious about their developing practice; (c) sharing responsibility for instruction and distributing roles and resources enables mentors to better meet the needs of student teachers and students; and (d) effective peer placements require mentors to conceptualize their work in different ways. Professional development recommendations are also provided.

Exploring whether students’ use of labelling depends upon the type of activity

This paper explores a labelling feature designed to support higher-level online dialogue. It investigates whether students use labels less often during a structured online dialogue than during an unstructured one, and looks at students’ reactions to labelling and to both types of tasks. Participants are from three successive course offerings of a Master’s-level course (n = 37). All students are allowed but not required to use a labelling feature which enables them to insert phrases such as “Building on your point” directly into their online messages. All students participate in two types of online activities in small groups—first an unstructured online dialogue, then a structured online dialogue. Students tended to use labels significantly less often during the structured dialogue: F(1, 36) = 5.950, p < 0.05. Sixty-two percent of students used the feature more than once during the unstructured dialogue compared to 46% during the structured dialogue. The maximum number of labels that a student used in the unstructured dialogue was 28 versus 16 in the structured dialogue. Students generally found the structured dialogue to be more interesting and relevant, and to have clearer expectations. Student reactions to the labelling feature were mixed: The mean of satisfaction was 18.35, SD = 3.88 (six items on a 5-point Likert scale). Students did not find labelling as useful during the structured dialogue: Perhaps labelling and the activity provided redundant scaffolding. These results imply that features built into the software should be implemented flexibly with thought to the other pedagogical scaffolds in the environment, particularly to the type of activity.

Employing constructivist-based principles in an &lt;i&gt;Applied Language Studies in English&lt;/i&gt; course with a focus on ideology and the media

In line with outcomes-based education (OBE), language practitioners in South Africa have shifted their focus from a predominantly transmission-based, instructionist approach to language teaching to a more cognitive approach, which no longer treats learners as passive recipients of knowledge. In keeping with this shift, several linguists and applied linguists in the field of language teaching have focused on constructivist approaches to learning (e.g. Blyth, 1997; Collentine, 2000; Kaufman, 2004). This article reports on how a constructivist model of learning, combined with a discourse-based approach to analysing newspaper language, was employed in an Applied Language Studies in English module currently offered at third-year level at a South African tertiary institution. The constructivist principles underlying the course are identified, the aim being to show how a discourse-based, constructivist approach may be used to (i) heighten learners' awareness of how global metaphors establish ideology in newspaper editorials and (ii) guide learners in the writing of their own editorials in which they generate metaphors that reflect specific ideological perspectives. At the same time, a common misconception that constructivist learning does not involve direct instruction from the teacher is countered. In this regard, the notion of pedagogical scaffolding is considered.

Action-based Teaching, Autonomy and Identity

Action-based teaching puts agency at the centre of the learning process. This can be defined as the socioculturally mediated capacity to act (Ahearn, 2001: 112). An actionbased approach is related to other approaches, such as content-based, project-based and task-based teaching and learning. However, it makes agency, rather than the particular curricular organisation, the defining construct. In this paper, various situated aspects of agency are examined, such as issues of power and control, democracy in the classroom, and the relationships between structure and process. A central aspect of an action-based approach is the centrality of perception, and its intricate connections to action and understanding. Perception is also central in the development of self and identity, in the shaping of the learners' relationships to their world. Finally, pedagogical strategies and actions are illustrated, such as a coherent and non-trivial model of pedagogical scaffolding that integrates structuring and microgenesis.

THE SOCIAL FOUNDATIONS CLASSROOM: Charting "Unexplored Territory"1 in the Social Foundations: Pedagogical Practice in Urban Teacher Education

The aim of this article is to describe and analyze the undergraduate Social Foundations course I taught at an urban, inclusive university that attempted to provide students with, among other things, a forum for them to develop both a self-confident personal voice and a view of self as potential change agent of schools. In brief, with what I term pedagogical scaffolding, including the use of key essential questions and double-entry journals, undergraduate students develop personal philosophy statements that are coherent, thoughtful, and self-confident and that demonstrate a sense of personal efficacy in the context of urban public schooling. Excerpts from student papers serve as evidence demonstrating that over the course of the semester students became increasingly secure while responding to academic text, in formulating clear and strong positions on education issues and, perhaps most important, in their commitments and abilities to participate in the reform of urban schools for all children.

Negotiating power and redefining literacy expertise: Buddy Reading in a dual‐immersion programme

This paper reports on a case study of face‐to‐face interaction around and about texts between a second grade dyad in a dual‐immersion programme. Through the lenses of Vygotskian situated cognition and Literacy Studies, classroom observations were conducted, both holistic and focused. Daily peer reading sessions between a dyad were tape recorded, and informal interviews with the teacher and the participating dyad were conducted. The analysis of participants' verbal exchanges revealed multiple pedagogical scaffolds, few of which were unexpected. As meaning making became more salient to the various collaborative literacy tasks, the roles of tutor and tutee were blurred. The shift in power also impacted the direction of language switches. Buddy Reading encouraged the peer readers to acknowledge and draw upon each other's expertise, as they redefined what it meant to be ‘a good reader’.

Reel American History: An Archive Built by Novices

Gallagher | Reel American History: An Archive Built by Novices Reel American History: An Archive Built by Novices by Edward J. Gallagher Lehigh University I'd like to describe a Lehigh University web site of potential interest to readers of Film & History and to invite not only use of it and feedback about it but especially and primarily contributions to it. Reel American History is a web site that provides resources created by students for the study offilms aboutAmerican history. One goal of the project is to stimulate high school, college, and graduate students to think critically about the ways movies construct our history. At present, this ever-in-progress site contains in-depth case studies on twenty-five films and a variety of research resources and pedagogical scaffolding (look below for more details, but, printed out, the material on the site now runs over 1500 pages). Our sound-bite slogan is that the purpose of the site is to sensitize students to how the "reel" makes the "real." Another goal of the project is to explore substantive uses of the new technology for pedagogical purposes. Randy Bass and Bret Eynon lay out three categories of "intriguing opportunities for meaningful learning" offered by electronic environments: inquiry-based learning utilizing primary sources now available on the web, increased interaction provided by discussion lists and chat programs, and publication of student work (40-41). I had worked in the first two categories and was eager to explore the third. Pedagogically, then, Reel American History most closely resembles what Bass and Eynon call a "Collaborative Shared Resource" (56). It aims at being a large, ongoing, cumulative, collaborative project that involves many students and many faculty from a variety oflocations — notjust Lehigh — over a long period of time (55). Bass has coined the phrase "novice in the archives" (46) to capture the experience of having students work on the web with hitherto unavailable primary resources. Another sound bite of ours puns meaningfully on Bass's coinage: Reel American History is "an archive built by novices." Let's say more about these two goals in turn. First, why study films about American history? I would guess that readers of Film & History will knock that question right out of the park. Suffice it to say that my shorthand answer takes the form of a syllogism: a history is one of the elements that constitutes a nation (without a history, we are not a "We"), but in the modern world films are the way many people internalize their history ("films write history with lightning"), and, therefore, it behooves us to study what kind of history films are constructing. Nations, to borrow from Benedict Anderson, are imagined communities; nations, to borrow from Timothy Brennan, depend for their existence on an apparatus of cultural fictions in which film plays a decisive role (49). One goal ofthe ReelAmerican History project, then, is to foster critical thinking about a matter of enduring cultural attention, especially where young people are concerned: the formation of our national identity, our national imaginary. In this regard, we have tried to arouse excitement for the value of the project through what one ofmy collaborators, Stephen Tompkins, calls the "manifesto" on our title page. Second, why use the web to achieve this goal? Bass and Eynon point out that "digital environments are ideal to facilitate the realization of constructionist approaches" and, quoting constructionist theorists, that "learners are particularly likely to make new ideas when they are actively engaged in making some type of external artifact . . . which they can reflect upon and share with others" (55). In short, I was intrigued by the potential for enhanced learning through a project in which individual students doing "authentic" work (55) were part of a community not limited by time or space and engaged in building a web site on an importantissue that would be ofvalue to people beyond the course and even beyond the campus—all the while gaining and demonstrating technical experience that would add a practical dimension to their resumes. And, from my own perspective, I felt that I needed a focal point if I were to grow in understanding of and facility with the new technology. Reel American...

Big Picture Talkers/Words Walking Without Masters: The Instructional Implications of Ethnic Voices for an Expanded Literacy

Jody Starks, a major character in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937/1990), is accused by his wife Janie, the story's protagonist, of being busy listening tuh yo' own (p. 82). Janie believed that God made humans each with a special spark and that God intended each spark to shine. Because Jody Starks was too full of his own voice, he was unable to see Janie's shine. An analogy can be drawn between the fictive Jody Starks and the academy of both researchers and classroom teachers. The academy is so full of its own voice that it diminishes and (more often than not) tarnishes the shine of those children who are not White and middle-class. The voices of America's diverse ethnic populations each have a linguistic power that too often only the creative writer-the novelist, the poet, the dramatist, and creative essayist-hears and appreciates. The present article offers an example of the voice of one such community: the African American community. It attempts to describe the craft with which that community's talk is sculpted and re-created at another level by creative writers who consciously acknowledge the voices of those whom Hurston calls big picture talkers-adults and youths from the porch stoops and street corners of African America-as a source of inspiration. Lest anyone fear that I am simply joining the ranks of those who rancor for the inclusion of African American literature in schools because of the positive self-esteem that Black youth can gain from reading such literature, let me caution that this article attempts to stake out new territory. I offer herein that the union of novice readers and ethnic literature provides a great deal more than ethnic pride. Rather, it can support a pedagogical scaffolding between reader and literary text capable of building the skills of literary analysis that most youth in American schools simply miss (Lee, 1991b). The most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores indicate that the best of America's students have difficulty reading below the surface meaning of texts, and most cannot support their inferences about what they have read with evidence (Mullis et al., 1990). Marshall's (1989, 1990) field studies present a picture in which teachers dominate classroom talk about literature,