Scaffolding for ReasoningThe "Flipped Classroom" provides avenues for teachers to become facilitators of learning and move away from the sage on a stage approach to teaching. One of the greatest differences of the flipped classroom to traditional practices is how scaffolding techniques are use to support reasoning and the development of problem solving skills. In this first part of a two part article on scaffolding, author Mike King will explain the differences in meta-cognitive scaffolding and student support scaffolding in traditional classrooms.
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"Zone Proximal Development"“The Zone of Proximal Development is the distance between what the learner understands within an assigned task (can do by themselves without assistance) and the next level of learning that they can
complete independently through a higher conceptual level of understanding . The term "Zone of Proximal Development" was originally created by Vygotsky who defined scaffolding instruction as the “role of teachers and others in supporting the learner’s development and providing support structures to get to that next stage or level. This type of learning strategy implies that the role of the facilitator in the flipped classroom must ensure both the exactness of learning and provide support for the student to become an independent and self-regulating learner and problem solver. |
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ePub GenerationWith content so readily available, being published by the ePub generation may not in some cases be exact. What is needed is the reasoning processes that helps the learner to determine the exactness of knowledge as it is filtered through multiple resources. In other words what skills will the student have to ensure that the knowledge they are obtaining through multiple resources is true and factual. This is where scaffolding becomes essential within the 21 Century learning environment.
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Active LearningProblem Based Learning in the flipped classroom is centered around the presentation of a problem, not lectures or assignments or exercises. Since "content obtainment" is not at the center of learning the classroom becomes an active center for discovery using content as a support to solve a problem. Scaffolding through the process of reasoning is to retrieve information through the effective use of references. This is not to say that learning is content free. Learning in fact is the use of multiple constructed
content references that is project oriented to real life situations. To use content in multiple references allows the learner to construct higher levels of thought while blending multiple resources into conceptual understanding. |
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