Scaffolding and modelling are two of the key tools all teachers call on to help learners understand ideas and information, successfully complete tasks, and make good progress.

Scaffolding is the process by which you support learners to learn and do more than they could manage on their own.

It is the help you provide, tailored to their current circumstances.

A good rule of thumb here is to give the least amount of help first.

This means you promote independence and a sense of agency and don’t fall into the trap of doing the work for the learner.

Modelling can be considered as a type of scaffolding, though it is sufficiently important to warrant a distinction.

It is the process by which we demonstrate ideas, processes and activities for learners, helping them to understand these and giving them a model from which they can borrow, imitate or copy.

This includes things such as modelling of thinking, modelling of skills and modelling of how to tackle a particular task.

When it comes to effective feedback, we can use scaffolding and modelling to help learners understand:

• What their feedback means
• How to act on their feedback
• What implementation of their feedback will look like (and, by extension, what good looks like in this context)
• Where the feedback comes from and why it has been given
• How to tell if they have successfully implemented their feedback

This sees us using scaffolding and modelling in the same way as we would use it in any other area of teaching.

Only with the subject of our endeavours being feedback, as opposed to anything else.

Our goal is to use scaffolding and modelling to help enhance the effectiveness of our feedback.

For this reason, we will need to decide when it is appropriate and when it is unnecessary.

For example, we might decide that some learners will require regular scaffolding of their feedback because, for whatever reason, they struggle to deal with it on their own.

On the other hand, we might identify some learners who will rarely require any support, except on the odd occasion.

Five examples of how you can use scaffolding to make your feedback more effective

1. Turn a target into a series of three sub-questions. Indicate to learners that by answering each question in turn they will achieve their target.
2. Re-explain feedback to learners who don’t understand. Use simpler language and shorter sentences to increase clarity.
3. Use concrete examples to contextualise abstract ideas. For example, if you have asked a student to be more critical, exemplify this through concrete examples of critical thinking.
4. Break a target into two parts. Explain the different parts to a learner and ask them to focus on one at a time.
5. Instead of writing feedback in continuous prose, deliver a series of short bullet points. For example, three strengths and one target. Then, offer further verbal explanation when learners receive their feedback.

And five examples of how you can use modelling

1. Talk learners through how you would go about trying to implement the feedback if you were in their shoes. Model your thinking for them.
2. Model the thinking that led you to give the feedback. This helps learners understand where the feedback came from and why it matters.
3. Use exemplar work as a model that shows learners what they are aiming for.
4. Sit down with learners and model how to begin acting on their feedback. For example, if you have asked them to rewrite a section of their work, sit down with them and model the first part of this process, then invite them to take over.
5. Model positive responses to feedback. Show learners how to put emotional reactions to one side and see feedback in a positive light.