## Article Summary
This article is situated in the context of Australian classrooms around the turn of the millenium, and indicates that teaching quality “[was becoming] a focus for educational researchers and practitioners” and that “the metaphor of scaffolding…[was] getting more popular among educators” (p. 5). Despite this, “scaffolding does not provide educators with clear and definite guidelines on the ways that it should be used to achieve successful teaching” and that “there is a need for a clear articulation of the basic theoretical principles” of the metaphor in order to guarantee that it is used correctly. Per the author, the paper “attempts to examine the relationship between perceptions of scaffolding by educators and the principles of teaching in the zone of proximal development”, and attempts to answer the following questions: what characteristics to educational researchers attribute to scaffolding to describe it as different to other kinds of teaching instruction?; how do these characteristics connect to those of teaching in the zone of proximal development? (p. 6)
She cites Wells (1999) in identifying three features of scaffolding:
- Dialogic nature of the discourse in which knowlege is co-constructed
- Significance of the kind of activity in which knowing is embedded
- The role of artefacts that mediate knowing (p. 7). In the same article by Wells, Mercer and Fisher (1993) propose a theoretical definition of scaffolding, requiring that a teaching and learning event should
- Enable the learners to carry out the task which they would not have been able to manage on their own
- Be intended to bring the learner to a state of competence which will enable them eventually to complete such a task on their own
- Be followed by evidence of the learners having achieved some greater level of independent competence as a result of the scaffolding experience This framework intends to highlight “the collaboration between the teacher and the learner in constructing knowledge and skill”, which is consistent with Vygotksy’s emphasis on the social element of learning in the ZPD.
However, several threads of concern exist with the scaffolding metaphor. Lave and Wenger (1991, in Daniels, 2001) wonder if “scaffolding captures teaching performance as a one-way communication process compared to the notion of the ZPD which emphasises teacher-learner collaboration and negotiation” (p. 8). Stone (1998) interrogates the scaffolding metaphor itself as a useful tool to generate progressive ideas, and cites Searle (1984, in Stone 1998) in raising concern that “the metaphor of scaffolding can lead to viewing the adult-child interaction in the classroom as predominantly adult driven and one-sided”, which would defeat the purpose of the scaffolding in a constructivist view (p. 8). In any event, “both Piaget and Vygotsky [agree] that individual’s active participation is essential for successful development”, but Vygotsky chooses to emphasize the role that social interaction plays in the process; thus, scaffolding as a metaphor “doesn’t capture the two-way relationship between the teacher and a student, but rather implies a one-sided view of this relationship where a teacher provides a support” for them instead (p. 8). Ultimately, Verenikina warns that “a literal interpretation of the scaffolding metaphor might lead to a narrow view of child-teacher interaction” and create “a passive recipient of a teacher’s direct instruction” (p. 9).
The ZPD is “the distance between what a person can do with and without help” (p. 9). It can be misinterpreted and “there is a danger that a failure to understand the complexity of Vygotskian theory as a whole can lead to interpretation of the zone of proximal development as a domination over a child’s initiative and active position as a learner” (p. 9). Indeed, the student should be “an active participant in their own learning” in the core of the ZPD construct (p. 10). The interwoven nature of culture and society in the construction of meaning create a complex nature to teaching in the ZPD. She maintains that we should “look at the way that a child’s performance is mediated socially…this includes the means by which the educator meets the level of the child’s understanding and leads the child toa higher, culturally mediated level of development” (p. 11).
My Thoughts
Up front, there seems to some tension between what Verenikina claims and what Schunk claims. Schunk cites Puntambekar & Humbscher (2005) in claiming that “scaffolding is not a formal part of Vygotsky’s theory” and that its label was “coined by Wood, Bruner, and Ross (1976)” (“Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory”, Applications, para. 4). However, Vereninka only seems to say that “the concept of the zone of proximal development…is commonly regarded as the theoretical underpinning of scaffolding” (p. 7). However, this is resolved in the next paragraph, when Vereninka gives a handful of citations for the theoretical underpinning comment.
Overall, I think that the article does a decent job of identifying where the idea of scaffolding can go wrong, and more importantly, why it can go wrong from the standpoint of Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development.
Citations
Schunk, D.H. (2019). Learning theories: An educational perspective (8th ed.). Pearson.
Verenikina, I. (2004). From theory to practice: What does the metaphor of scaffolding mean to educators today?. Outlines: critical social studies, 6 (2), 5-16.