#Ten thumbs students series#

Here is some great advice from elementary teacher Tammy DeShaw. Learn more: Chunking Information for Instructional Design 6. By breaking it down, you’re providing scaffolds that students need.

Give them a checklist that they can follow. Scaffold learning by breaking down directions into chunks that students can complete one step at a time. Sometimes it’s hard for students to remember all the steps they have to follow for an assignment. Learn more: Different Learning Styles: What Teachers Need To Know 5. The more ways you approach learning, the more sense it will make for students. Show them, tell them, and let them try it for themselves. Support different learning styles by approaching new concepts from multiple angles.

Learn more: Improve Reading Comprehension With Think-Alouds Use a think-aloud strategy to give your students a model for an inner dialogue they can copy. Verbalize your thought process as you demonstrate. Or gather them on the rug and let them watch you solve a math problem in a new way. For example, demonstrate a science experiment so they can see how it’s done before they do it themselves. One of the best ways to scaffold learning is to show your students an example of what they will be learning. Learn more: Explicit Instruction: Best Practices for Teaching Math to Unique Learners 3. Catching students’ errors while they’re still practicing will prevent them from learning the skill incorrectly and then continuing to practice it incorrectly for homework and on other assignments. In addition, immediate corrective feedback is critical. That is, instruction that includes clear modeling, think-alouds, and multiple examples, which are described in greater detail below. One of the best practices in supporting learners is the use of systematic, explicit instruction. Learn more: Essentials of a Mini-Lesson 2.

#Ten thumbs students series#

Teaching a series of mini-lessons provides students with a safety net that moves them progressively toward deeper understanding. Teach mini-lessonsīreak down new concepts into bite-sized pieces that build on one another. Using the much-lauded concept the Zone of Proximal Development, teachers can guide, support, and encourage students as they help them develop problem-solving strategies that can be generalized to other situations. He theorized that children learn best when they interact with other people, particularly more knowledgeable people, who provide guidance and encouragement to master new skills. The strategy is based on the work of Russian psychologist Len Vygotsky, whose theories stress the fundamental role of social interaction in cognitive development. In other words, it’s a way for teachers to provide support while students master new concepts and skills. Scaffolding is a way to provide support for students by breaking down learning into manageable chunks as they progress toward stronger understanding and ultimately greater independence. If you’re an administrator, share these practices with your teachers, and look for them during classroom walk-throughs. If you’re a teacher, integrate these as best practices, and observe their impact.

Luckily there are many strategies educators can use to help students, and among the most important is scaffolding.īelow you’ll learn more about scaffolding in education, including 18 effective ways to scaffold learning. Almost all students, particularly those with unique learning needs, have felt exactly this way in the classroom at one time or another. Without being told the purpose of the activity, specific expectations, or background information, it would be overwhelming and discouraging to say the least. Providing students with better instructional scaffolding is often a schoolwide objective, but how can school leaders and teachers put this big idea into practice? Imagine someone plopping a giant box of odds and ends in front of you and telling you to figure out what to do with them with no further instructions.