Examples of how scaffolding is used

To all my Level 4 LP students:

Below are some practical examples of how scaffolding is used in the real world context. Hopefully this will help you understand Vygotsky’s theory of Proximal learning.

Current applications of Vygotsky's work

A contemporary application of Vygotsky's theories is "reciprocal teaching", used to improve students' ability to learn from text. In this method, teacher and students collaborate in learning and practicing four key skills: summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and predicting.  The teacher's role in the process is reduced over time.
Also, Vygotsky is relevant to instructional concepts such as "scaffolding" and "apprenticeship", in which a teacher or more advanced peer helps to structure or arrange a task so that a novice can work on it successfully.


Vygotsky's theories also feed into current interest in collaborative learning, suggesting that group members should have different levels of ability so more advanced peers can help less advanced members operate within their zone of proximal development.  (Availbale onnline: http://www.simplypsychology.org/Zone-of-Proximal-Development.html)

Best regards,
Mr.Keyser