Ronnie Burt wrote a blog post about a debate he’s been having with Sue Waters, Edublogger Debate: Scaffolding vs. Struggling – Can You Be Too Helpful? I found the topic quite intriguing as it fits perfectly into what I spend a majority of my time worrying about, Student Engagement and Student Discipline.
So the question is whether to let students struggle with concepts and new ideas or to provide as much scaffolding as possible? Ronnie made the point that, “to some extent this will depend on the learner, content, environment, and more. But there is a general philosophy at play.”
I don’t have any research that I can think of on which to base my opinions, but my opinions stem from 21 years of working with 9 to 14 year olds. Unfortunately, I can’t agree with one way over the other. I tend to go with the middle-of-the-road philosophy and for this debate I think it fits rather well. See I also believe that struggling with concepts and new ideas helps us learn. But I’ve seen many a student shut down when the struggle seems pointless. For many students the struggle seems insurmountable because they don’t have the skills necessary to move on or they can’t see how to move on. Scaffolding helps many students stay on target.
So my middle-of-the-road philosophy is to provide just enough scaffolding that students will be able to engage with the concepts or new ideas enough to struggle. Your highly skilled students will breeze through the scaffolds but if they can persevere they may reach a point of struggle. The right feedback will help them through if they get stuck, otherwise there will be aha’s and learning in the struggle.
For those kids who lack skills the scaffolding should provide them enough help to get past any early struggles so they don’t shut down but it shouldn’t keep them from struggling.
Kids that have learning disabilities will need more scaffolding for they can shut down early and often. They tend to struggle all the time.
None of this is easy. It requires creativity, imagination and constant reassessment. In answer to the question, “Can you be too helpful?” I say yes. That is why we have to constantly reassess our scaffolding, to make sure we aren’t too helpful and take away our students’ opportunities to struggle. It’s easy to do as we come to our students rescue way to often. I think kids, all kids, quit too easily. They aren’t used to struggling so we have to provide them with those opportunities. So I’m choosing struggle with some scaffolding so that students don’t quit. Since feedback could be just the right scaffolding for some I think we’re doing that already anyway.
