CHALIMBANA UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE EDUCATION

DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS

NAMES: JOHN MALINDA KAKOMA

STUDENT NUMBER: 2104132708

STUDENT CONTACT: 0968194732

email: malindakakoma74@yahoo.com

COURSE: MATHEMATICS METHODOLOGY

COURSE CODE: MET 3400

LECTURER: MR SINZALA

ASSIGNMENT: 02

DUE DATE: AUGUST, 2022

QUESTION:

(a) Define the term scaffolding in terms of teaching mathematics.

(b) What are the advantages of using scaffolding in teaching of
Mathematics concepts
INTRODUCTION
The scaffolding approach is based on Lev Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) concept, but the term
itself was coined by David Wood, Gail Ross, and Jerome Bruner Jerome (1976) in a report entitled, “The Role of
Tutoring in Problem Solving.” In building terms, scaffolding refers to a platform that is temporarily set up to aid
builders. It gives them elevation and support. In the teaching of mathematics, the mental image and symbolism is
similar to grasp. A teacher acts as an “activator” who helps a student master a new mathematical concept. They use
“fading,” or the process of gradually lowering their support level (or scaffolding), as a student gains hold of the new
concept, process, or task at hand. The idea is that you should always create lessons that are challenging but achievable
for students. The role for teachers of mathematics is to provide that support (or ‘scaffolding’) until the student can
complete the task without help. Psychologist and instructional designer Jerome Bruner first used the term 'scaffolding'
in this context back in the 1960s. The theory is that when students are given the support they need while learning
something new, they stand a better chance of using that knowledge independently. Bruner recommends positive
interaction and three modes of representation during teaching: actions, images, and language.

DEFINING THE TERM SCAFFOLDING IN THE LEARNING OF MATHEMATICS

In mathematics, there are several different ways to teach and learn using the scaffolding method. Every student has their
own preferred method to absorb information. When it comes to knowledge, the general idea is that you should be able
to learn how to do something new and then be able to do it independently.

The following are some of the scaffolding ways in which mathematics is taught:

Leverage Prior Knowledge. For the most part, learning mathematics in the classroom resembles practical life
experiences. You should try to tap into your student’s experiences and prior knowledge when teaching new concepts.
This way, they can relate their learning to their lives and use problem-solving skills. Embracing prior knowledge in the
teaching of mathematics may include: Using a strategy the student knows and applying it to this new task, Using
analogy to make the new knowledge relevant (and make sense) to the student’s life and Relate the idea to the student’s
interests in sports, gaming or literature. These strategies can help students have ‘light bulb moments’ where they move
through the difficulties and come to understand difficult ideas in new light.

Looking, Touching and Verbalising. This can bring different senses to bear on a problem by encouraging students to
handle manipulatives, reflect on what they can see, and repeat instructions or verbalise observations. The teacher’s
encouragement to “pick up a block, hold it with both hands, turn it around and look at it carefully” was successful in
helping young children in a task of matching 3D shapes to their 2D faces (Coltman et al., 2002). When unable to
continue a repeating sequence of three blocks s/he had seen being constructed, the teacher asked the child to “tell me the
colours” as the sequence was built. The resulting reflection enabled the child to continue correctly. Similarly, in
arithmetic teaching the encouragement to “tell me what you did” will frequently lead a student to verbalize their
thinking and notice an error in reasoning or in calculating that they can correct for themselves. ‘It seems that the act of
attempting to express their thoughts aloud in words has helped pupils to clarify and organise the thoughts themselves’
(Pimm, 1987, p. 23).

Parallel Modelling. When the reflective interactions identified above are not sufficient to lead to the solution of a
problem there can be a temptation to ‘show’ or ‘tell’ a solution but an alternative strategy is parallel modelling (Coltman
et al., 2002). Here the teacher creates and solves a task that shares some of the characteristics of the student’s problem.
The student retains ownership of the original task but has the opportunity to see a parallel task being solved and to
transfer understanding. This is often used in arithmetic teaching with the provision of worked examples.

Students Explaining and Justifying. In contrast to teaching built upon teachers’ explanations, social norms can be
established in the classroom where the students themselves are expected to go beyond simply verbalizing, such as
repeating instructions or describing a situation, to explain and justify their solutions (Cobb, Wood & Yackel, 1991). The
role of the teacher is to promote mathematical understandings through the ‘orchestration’ of small group and whole
class discussions where students actively participate by making explicit their thinking; listening to contributions made

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by classmates and indicating when they do not understand an explanation, and asking clarifying questions. This will
also help the teacher to monitor the understanding of individuals. Through such elaborations, teachers will also be better
informed of each individual’s mathematical understanding and this will facilitate teaching that is responsive to the needs
of these individuals.

Restructuring. Through restructuring, the teacher’s intention is to introduce progressively modifications that will make
ideas more accessible, not only establishing contact with students’ existing understanding but taking meanings forward.
Restructuring involves interactions such as: provision of meaningful contexts to abstract situations; simplifying the
problem by constraining and limiting the degrees of freedom; rephrasing students’ talk and negotiating meanings.

Identifying Meaningful Contexts. Where students cannot solve an abstract problem a context can help students
identify something within their experience that is related. In arithmetic, the shift from an abstract calculation: ‘6÷12=__’
to a contextual setting: “Six pizzas to be shared among 12 people.” took a problem from inaccessibility to the
construction of a meaningful solution (Anghileri, 1995). Such an approach revolves around imagery and scaffolding
students’ thinking involves ensuring that (their) activity remains grounded in the mathematical imagery of the situation
(Cobb et al., 2000). Acknowledging that mathematical understanding must extend to applications of abstract concepts
and processes, the move to abstraction will need to be progressive, and may require the introduction of a number of
different contexts. Students will come to identify key characteristics of a problem and relate them to familiar contexts as
they develop their own understanding of the abstract links.

Re-phrasing Students’ Talk. Re-phrasing students’ talk is an important role of the teacher for highlighting processes
involved in solutions, re-describing students’ efforts to make clear the mathematical aspects that are most valued.
Considerable sensitivity may be needed to ‘unpick’ the essence of students’ talk, rephrasing where necessary to make
ideas clearer without losing the intended meaning, and negotiating new meanings to establish mathematically valid
understandings (Anghileri, 1995). This clearly relates to the strategy of interpreting students’ actions and talk of the
previous section but goes further by introducing and extending the more formal language of mathematics. Using formal
mathematical terminology is only part of the development in children’s learning as language is not a means of
transporting conceptual structures from teacher to student, but it is an element of interactions that allows the teacher to
constrain and to guide the cognitive construction of the student.

Negotiating Meanings. As a teacher pays close attention to pupils’ talk, many ‘spoken formulations and revisions will
often be required before an acceptable and stable expression can be agreed upon by all participants’ (Pimm, 87, p. 23).
This process of negotiating meanings involves a ‘social process of developing a topic, by pooling and probing
predicates and by selecting socially agreed-on predicates’ as classroom discussion becomes ‘the collective learning of
the classroom community, during which taken-as-shared mathematical meanings emerge as the teacher and students
negotiate interpretations and solutions’ (Gravemeijer etal, 2000). It is through a struggle for shared meaning that a
process of cooperatively figuring things out determines what can be said and understood by both teacher and students
and this is what constitutes real mathematics learning in the classroom.

Developing Representational Tools. Much of mathematical learning relates to the interpretation and use of systems of
images, words and symbols that are integral to mathematical reasoning. ‘Mathematics as a discipline is now generally
conceived as an activity in which constructive representation, with the help of symbols, plays a decisive role’ (van Oers,
2000). In understanding number, words and symbols become inextricably linked for notating thinking and for
organizing thinking itself. In working with practical tasks the representational tools can revolve around language, both
the informal language that evokes images familiar to the children (for example, a triangular prism recognised as the
‘roof’ shape), and the formal names (triangular prism) that children begin to use as they refine their understanding of
particular characteristics (Coltman et al., 2002). Representations also include the structuring of practical activities to
provide powerful visual imagery. The focus is not on the symbols themselves, but on the activity of meaning making for
the mathematical structures represented.

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Making Connections. Teacher interventions appear to be a key to developing children’s ideas in a connected way, and
making connections is crucial as a strategy to support mathematics learning. In a study of effective numeracy teaching,
the term ‘connectionist’ was used to describe approaches, where emphasis is given to the links between different ideas
in mathematics, and where pupils are encouraged to draw on their mathematical understanding to develop their own
strategies in problem solving (Askew etal 1997). This research found that highly effective teachers believe that pupils
develop strategies and networks of ideas by being challenged to think, through explaining their thinking and listening to
the thinking of others. Such teaching approaches build on pupils’ own strategies with teacher interventions to clarify the
thinking, and make explicit the aspects that are most critical to understanding (Wood, 1994). Learning of decimals gives
an example of the way learning can be enhanced if connections are made with fractions and percentages.

ADVANTAGES OF USING SCAFFOLDING IN TEACHING OF MATHEMATICS CONCEPTS.

One very important benefit of scaffolding is that it helps students to feel supported through tasks that are difficult.
Instead of feeling negative emotions and becoming frustrated or discouraged by a task, a child or student can be helped
to success which will then boost their sense of self-esteem. It provides a welcoming and supportive learning
environment and students feel free to ask questions and support one another through new learning

Scaffolding minimizes the learner's level of frustration. It can be used to "cool down" learners who are easily frustrated
when learning with their peers. A learner's behavior can be monitored, and time can be taken to counsel her on the
frustration she builds while learning mathematics with the others the same class. It further allows for a free flowing
lesson that is structured, focuses and where glitches have been minimized or eliminated prior to initiation. Momentum
within the classroom is created, where students are on task, and less time is spent searching for information and rather is
on learning and discovering.

Learners feel engaged and motivated to learn which is vital for learning mathematics. Through scaffolding, the learner
is engaged in an active process of learning mathematics. The teacher builds on the knowledge the learner has of a
particular topic. Scaffolding is like a research assignment in which the learner is made to find the solution to
unanswered questions. This motivates the learner and gives him an urge to learn more thuds improving his
mathematical skills and concepts.

The teacher who uses instructional scaffolding becomes more of a mentor and facilitator of knowledge, rather than the
dominant expert of content. This teaching style allows the students to take a more active role in their own learning.
Students are engaged in meaningful and dynamic discussion and are challenged through deep learning and discovery.

Under scaffolding method of teaching and learning, there is greater assurance that the students will fully understand and
acquire the desired skill, knowledge or ability. It provides individualized instruction and as a result increases the
likelihood for students to meet instructional objectives. Scaffolding allows the teacher to have strong insight into student
progress so they can adapt the scaffolding as needed thus scaffolding programs can also act as a possible early identifier
of a student who is gifted and talented.

Scaffolding boosts student understandings and also helps to differentiate learning by providing different levels of
scaffolding depending on where students are at with their learning. It allows students to master skills faster and stay
engaged longer and feel supported in their learning.

Independent learning from an early age is promoted through scaffolding. It also allows strong opportunities for
collaborative learning and does increase the amount of time that students are able to stay on task.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, all the levels of scaffolding identified are possible, from the provision of tasks and resources, to the
engagement in conceptual discourse. When it is recognised that some teaching provides only minimal support of the
nature identified above, for example textbook exercises that are set and marked, with explanations given by a teacher, it

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becomes possible to introduce enriching practices through the extended range of interactions outlined above. The
notion of scaffolding presupposes that learning is hierarchical and built on firm foundations, while research has shown
that elements of understanding can appear in students as an eclectic collection until connections are established. These
strategies can be weaved into lesson plans and used to differentiate instruction where you can implement different
scaffolds for students of varying learning abilities. The goal in teaching mathematics is for autonomous and
independent, self-motivated learners. For this purpose, flexible and dynamic scaffolding will need to be responsive to
the emerging learner within the social group.

REFERENCES

Anghileri, J. (1995) Language, Arithmetic and the negotiation of meaning, For the Learning of Mathematics, 21 (3),10-
14.
Askew, M., Brown, M., Rhodes, V., Wiliam, D., & Johnson, D. (1997). Effective Teachers of Numeracy: Report carried
out for the TTA, London: King's College.
Coltman, P., Anghileri, J., & Petyaeva, D. (2002). Scaffolding learning through meaningful tasks and adult interaction,
Early Years, 22(1), 39-49.
Cobb, P., Wood, T., & Yackel, E. (1991). Classrooms as learning environments for teachers and researchers. In R.
Davis, C. Maher. and N. Noddings (Eds), Constructivist views of the teaching and learning of mathematics. Reston,
VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
Hiebert, J., & Grouws, D. “The effects of classroom mathematics teaching on students’ learning.” N.p., 2016. Web. 21
Feb. 2016
Hobsbaum, A., Peters, S., & Sylva, K. (1996.) Scaffolding in Reading Recovery, Oxford Review of Education, 22
(1),17-35
Sciencedirect.com. “Modelling Reality In Mathematics Classrooms: The Case Of Word Problems.” N.p., 2016. Web. 15
Feb. 2016
Pimm, D. (1987). Speaking mathematically. London: Routledge.
Van Oers, B. (2000). Learning mathematics as a meaningful activity. In L. Steffe and P. Nesher (Eds), Theories of
mathematical learning (pp. 91-113). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Wood, D., Bruner, J., & Ross, G. (1976). The role of tutoring in problem solving, Journal of Child Psychology and
Psychiatry. 17, 89-100.
Wolfram, C. (2016). Teaching kids real math with computers. Ted.com. Retrieved 28 February 2016, From
https://www.ted.com/talks/conrad_wolfram_teaching_kids_real_math_with_computers

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