EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING - SCAFFOLDING REVISITED

Education has taken on board the concepts of 'scaffolding' and 'Zone o f Proximal Development' because embedded within them is a psyche-socia l model of teaching and learning. In this paper these concepts are exa mined in schooling contexts rather than those of everyday life. A firs t section outlines the ideas of the American socio-cultural school, fo r example, Cole, Lave, Rogoff etc. and their link with the work of Vyg otsky. Three sections are then devoted to a brief appraisal of the wor k of researchers who have been particularly concerned with scaffolding and schooling: Newman, Griffin and Cole; Tharp and Gallimore, and Woo d on effective learning through scaffolding and contingent control. Se ction 7 is devoted to our research which sets out to explore and ident ify scaffolding strategies in three specific primary schooling context s: design and technology, mathematics and science. We show the difficu lty of scaffolding specialist knowledge and analyse the reasons for th e absence of scaffolding in the classrooms observed. The last two sect ions set out our ideas on the differences between scaffolding everyday Knowledge and specialist knowledge.