Scaffolding in Education | Definition, Tips & Examples

Scaffolding is one of the most effective teaching strategies because it systematically fills the gap between what your students can do now and what you’re teaching them to do next.

Without scaffolding, students often have to perform a skill before they have the knowledge or strategies needed to succeed. Scaffolding breaks that skill into manageable steps, gives students opportunities to practice with support, and helps them build the confidence and independence they need to eventually do the work on their own.

Scaffolding can take many forms, from modeling a skill step-by-step to giving students a template, checklist, or guiding questions. The key is that the support is temporary and targeted, and students gradually take on more responsibility.

What is scaffolding in education?

Scaffolding is a systematic process of guiding learners toward proficiency with a skill. The term “scaffolding” comes from the temporary structures used in building construction, which make it possible to work on the higher levels of a building that aren’t accessible from the ground. Scaffolding in education gives students the support they need to demonstrate the skills that are currently out of reach.

Scaffolding can occur during and after instruction. For example, during instruction, a teacher could use these types of scaffolds:

• Step-by-step instructions
• Live demonstrations of the procedure to follow
• Examples and characteristics of effective work

After instruction (but before students have to do a task on their own), teachers use these types of scaffolds:

• A beginner-friendly version of the process
• Collaborative activity with the teacher or classmate(s)
• An activity with built-in hints or partially completed steps

As students become more proficient with the skill, the teacher reduces the scaffolds until students can complete the task without help.

The idea to scaffold instruction came from a concept in psychology called the zone of proximal development.

What is the zone of proximal development?

The zone of proximal development (ZPD) was introduced by the renowned psychologist Lev Vygotsky in the early 1900s. It’s the metaphorical gap between what students can do on their own and can’t yet do without help. The goal of scaffolding is to fill in that gap at first and remove the support after students no longer need it.

Let’s say you’re teaching a 4-year-old how to write their name. Without help, the child can make scribbles that look like letters, but writing their name completely by themselves is still too difficult. If you write the child’s name in yellow marker, the child can trace it with a blue marker. The skill of tracing letters with help falls within the child’s ZPD for handwriting. As they get better, their ZPD for writing will change.

Instructional scaffolding process

The process of scaffolding generally involves these steps:

1. Identify the learning objective (the skill students will eventually demonstrate).
2. Use formative assessment to determine what students can and can’t yet do.
3. Consider what information and subskills are relevant to your students’ ZPD.
4. Choose the scaffolding strategies that will close that gap.
5. Gradually fade support until students can do the task independently.

Effective scaffolding isn’t simply adding more help whenever a student struggles. The support should be connected to the learning objective and target the specific sub-skills that students haven’t demonstrated yet.

Gradual release of responsibility

One of the most common ways to scaffold is through a three-step model called gradual release of responsibility:

1. Direct instruction (I do): The teacher provides detailed information about how to complete a task.
2. Guided practice (we do): Students practice the task with help.
3. Independent practice (you do): Students do the task on their own.

These three stages aren’t always perfectly linear, especially if the teacher is using formative assessment to gauge students’ progress and make needed adjustments along the way. A teacher might move back to guided practice or direct instruction if students struggle during independent work.

Examples of scaffolding

Teachers can use many different scaffolding techniques depending on the subject, grade level, learning objective, and students’ current level of understanding. The most effective scaffold is one that addresses the specific barrier preventing a student from completing the task independently. The following examples show how teachers scaffold instruction during direct instruction and guided practice.

Scaffolding techniques for direct instruction

During the direct instruction phase, scaffolding is about unpacking the underlying knowledge and procedures that students need to know to start demonstrating a skill. By using these techniques, teachers show students how to go about completing the task.

Chunking

Chunking breaks a complex task into small, manageable pieces so that students know what steps are involved. For example, to teach students how to write an essay outline, the teacher could share these steps.

1. Make a list of the paragraph topics.
2. Gather details for each paragraph.
3. List the details beneath each paragraph topic.

Procedural demonstration

A procedural demonstration shows students how an expert (the teacher) goes about completing the task. For example, a teacher might work through a math problem or annotate a text on the board (step-by-step) and pause along the way to check for understanding or answer questions.

Think-aloud protocol

A think-aloud takes a procedural demonstration a step further. While demonstrating the procedure, the teacher explains each decision and strategy as they’re happening. The teacher might also show how to avoid common pitfalls or catch errors.

Models of effective work

Examples of high-quality work give students a concrete picture of what they are working toward. Models are even more effective when teachers annotate the specific features that make them effective. For example, a sample essay might include explanations about why the thesis, organization, topic sentences, and details are successful.

This type of scaffolding is especially powerful because it shows students how to evaluate their own work.

Scaffolding techniques for guided practice

During the guided practice phase, scaffolding techniques provide the temporary support that students need in order to start practicing a skill.

Graphic organizers

Graphic organizers give students a visual structure for organizing information or completing a task. They can reduce the amount of information students have to keep in working memory while helping them understand the relationships between ideas or steps.

For example, students preparing to write a compare-and-contrast essay might use a Venn diagram to organize similarities and differences before turning those ideas into paragraphs.

Guided questions

Guided questions break down the thinking required to complete a task. Instead of giving students the answer, teachers use open-ended questions to help students arrive at the answer themselves.

For example, to show students how to choose credible sources, a teacher might ask “What are this author’s underlying biases?” or “What evidence does this author use to develop their key points?”

Collaborative examples

During this type of scaffolding, students collaborate with the teacher or their peers to complete the task. Rather than doing every part of the task alone for the first time, students can do the steps that they’re ready for and discover where they need more practice.

For example, a teacher might have students proofread writing samples for grammar mistakes with a partner rather than jumping straight from a grammar lesson to a grammar test. While the students are working together, the teacher would take note of the specific grammar concepts to reinforce or reteach after the collaborative activity is over.

Sentence frames

Sentence frames (aka fill-in-the-blank sentences) give students part of the language they need to express an idea while leaving room for them to complete the thought themselves.

For example, these types of sentence starters would scaffold students’ ability to analyze a text:

• “One of the author’s weakest arguments is _____ because _______.”
• “The strongest piece of evidence in the article is ______ because _______.”

Empty outline

An empty or partially completed outline provides students with a structure for organizing a piece of writing without feeding them the content or ideas. For example, before writing a 5-paragraph essay, a teacher might provide sections for the introduction, topic sentences, supporting details, and conclusion. Students fill in their own ideas within that structure.

Think-pair-share

Think-pair-share gives students opportunities to process a question before they have to respond publicly. Students first think about the question individually (or jot down ideas), discuss their ideas with a partner, and then share with the larger group. This provides a scaffold for participating in a whole-class discussion.

Jigsaw

The jigsaw strategy divides learning material among groups or individual students. Each student or group becomes responsible for learning one portion of the material and then teaches it to others.

For example, in a social studies class, different groups might study different causes of a historical event. Students then reorganize into new groups and teach their assigned cause to their classmates.

Jigsaw activities can scaffold complex material by allowing students to focus on a manageable portion of the content before putting the pieces together.

Frequently asked questions about scaffolding in education

What is guided practice in education?

Guided practice in education is a step in the middle of a three-part scaffolding process: direct instruction → guided practice → independent practice. During the guided practice step, students practice demonstrating the skill or learning objective with help, which can include:

• Finishing a partially completed final product, like a 5-paragraph essay with sentence starters for each paragraph
• Collaborating with the teacher as a group to complete the task (e.g., working math problems on the board)
• Working in small groups where each learner is responsible for one part of the task or one area of expertise

When you need fresh ideas for guided practice or scaffolding, Quillbot’s AI Chat can help you out.

What are some examples of scaffolding in language learning?

Examples of scaffolding in language learning are techniques that teachers use to support students who are learning English as a new language, such as:

• Pre-teaching vocabulary before students read a text
• Pairing new English vocabulary words with real objects or photographs
• Reinforcing new English vocabulary
• Providing fill-in-the-blank sentence starters

Prompt Quillbot’s Image Generator to create photos or cartoons of the vocabulary words your students are learning.

What are some examples of scaffolding in math?

The best examples of scaffolding in math classrooms are techniques that systematically guide students toward proficiency in a particular math skill. Here are some of the ways to meet math students where they are and guide them towards a goal:

• Break a math problem into smaller steps.
• Demonstrate how to work a problem while verbalizing how to complete each step.
• Work problems on the board with student participation.
• Put students in pairs or groups to practice with peers.
• Start with the simplest version of an equation and gradually increase the difficulty level.
• Allow students to use physical manipulatives, like blocks or candies, for simple addition and subtraction.

To help students become truly independent with a math skill, it’s also important to gradually reduce the amount of scaffolding.

Quillbot’s AI Chat is a fast and free way to brainstorm ideas for math problems or scaffolding techniques.

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