Smart Strategies to Improve Your Scaffolding

Getting scaffolding right—amid the messy reality of teaching 30+ students at different skill levels—is one of the toughest challenges in teaching. 

Done well, it looks like tactical magic: teachers seamlessly know how and when to support kids, then step back at just the right moment, building independence by removing the training wheels. 

In this episode of School of Practice, we get into it with Beck Alber, a former high school ELA teacher and UCLA School of Education instructor. She unpacks the evidence-based essentials of smart, timely scaffolding—both for new teachers, as well as classroom veterans (have you changed up your routines lately? No? Alber’s got suggestions for that). We’ll chat about how to determine if your scaffolds are working, what to do if they’re not, and what a strong scaffolding toolbox looks like. 

Related resources:

• Learn more about this episode
• 6 Scaffolding Strategies to Use With Your Students
• Empowering Middle School Students to Create Their Own Scaffolds
• Scaffolding Like a Pro: Powerful Ways to Support Learning
• 6 Foundational Ways to Scaffold Student Learning
• Frayer Model (downloadable)
• Fishbowl Method (downloadable)
• 60-Second Strategy: Fishbowl Discussion (video)
• Choosing Words to Teach
• Research: Benefits of Interactive Graphic Organizers in Online Learning: Evidence for Generative Learning Theory (2021)
• Research: The Early History of the Scaffolding Metaphor: Bernstein, Luria, Vygotsky, and Before (2019)