Two simple ways you can get your learners self-scaffolding by using what they already have to grab hold of what they can’t yet do

General Introduction

This blog is part of my Differentiation and Adaptive Teaching Knowledge Base.

I use the terms differentiation and adaptive teaching synonymously. To me, they are the same, as genuine differentiation has always involved adapting your planning and your teaching to meet the needs of the learners in front of you.

For me, differentiation is all the practical strategies, activities and techniques teachers use to personalise learning.

For ease, we can break that down into my five categories of differentiation: Activities, Questioning, Words and Writing, Things the Teacher Can Do and Things You Can Ask Learners to Do or Use.

This blog falls into the category of things you can ask learners to do or use, also called self-scaffolding.

Using Prior Knowledge

All learners arrive at a lesson in possession of prior knowledge.

This could have come from:

Previous lessons
Personal experience (more on which, below)
Different media, like films and TV
Reading
Discussions with family members

and much more besides.

For our purposes here, we can delineate prior knowledge into three categories.

That which bears no connection to the topic of study.
That which bears a tangential connection to the topic of study.
That which bears a direct connection to the topic of study.

The second and third categories are the ones of interest to us.

If, as teachers, we can elicit some of this knowledge – or simply get learners to recall it and connect it to the lesson in hand – then we can make what we are teaching more accessible.

By helping learners connect their prior knowledge to the lesson, the teacher provides learners with a reference point – a means by which to access the learning.

It is like putting a flag in a map and saying: ‘Right; this is where we are starting from.’

As the lesson progresses, learners can turn around and reference what is going on against that starting point.

It gives them a firmer, stronger foothold in the lesson.

It contextualises the learning, giving it meaning in relation to learners’ existing knowledge.

It is a fundamental form of scaffolding.

We take that which the learner already possesses – their existing knowledge and experience – and use it to anchor their interaction with that which is new – the learning we want them to do.

How to draw out prior knowledge and experience

Here are ten examples of starter activities you can use.

List everything you already know that connects to the topic.
Draw a picture of each of the keywords. Think about what you already know.
Sixty seconds, talk to your partner, tell them everything you already know about the topic. Off you go.
Create a spider diagram about the topic.
You have two minutes to draw as many things as you can think of that connect to the topic.
Interview three people in the room to find out what they already know about the topic.
Write down the letters A-Z. How many connections can you make to the topic? I’ll give you two minutes. Off you go.
Work with a partner. Take it in turns to name as many words as possible you think link to the topic.
Work in threes. One person should be the scribe. The other two should call out as many words as they can think of that connect to the topic while the scribe writes these down.
How many real-world situations can you think of that connect to the topic?

In all these examples, our aim is to get learners bringing forth existing knowledge that has relevance to the learning.

This primes them for what comes next, scaffolding their interaction with it.

(Don’t forget part of this scaffolding is because by accessing what they already know, learners are contextualising what they are going to learn about. Thus, it is situated within their existing mental schemas.)

How does calling on prior knowledge help you to differentiate?

Causing learners to connect prior knowledge to the lesson in hand makes the learning more accessible.

All learners will come to a lesson with prior knowledge (though this will vary in degree).

Using activities to draw this out sees the teacher working to engage all learners.

Linking something new (the learning to be done in the lesson) with something already known (the prior knowledge) is a way of contextualising and giving meaning to that which is new.

This helps to make the lesson content accessible for all.

Ultimately, this is scaffolding at its most basic level.

(Basic in the sense of foundational, not in the sense of unsophisticated.)

Using Personal Experience

Personal experience, despite being touched on already, is sufficiently important to warrant a separate treatment.

We noted above that a learner’s personal experience could be identified as being part of their prior knowledge.

This is true in the broad sense that knowledge is the things we know.

We might create some nuance, however, by further delineating between knowledge gained in formal education and knowledge gained in other settings.

In so doing, we can separate the experience that learners have in school from the rest of their experience.

This is important on two counts.

First, some learners may not enjoy school.

This could be for a variety of reasons including the possibility that they struggle with academic work and therefore find it difficult to achieve success as it is defined in education (perhaps becoming disengaged as a result).

Second, what happens beyond school is likely to play a larger part in a learner’s life than what happens in school.

If we accept this proposition, we can then go on to imagine school as contextualised by the learner’s wider experience, rather than the other way round.

So, personal experience represents a way to connect learning done in the classroom to the learner’s own life (thus giving it meaning and making it accessible) and to break down some of the barriers learners might erect against the codes, language and formalities of schooling.

The upshot of this is that we can create opportunities for learners to bring their personal experiences into lessons, where appropriate.

For example, through:

Discussion
The planning of activities based on real-world problems
Activities that explicitly ask learners to call upon their personal experiences
Short starter activities that ask learners open questions or ask them to connect the topic or keyword to their own experiences.
Examples showing how the topic connects to the real world and then using these as a prompt to get learners thinking about their own experiences.

Let me take the last point to exemplify.

Imagine a teacher is doing quadratic equations with their learners.

They show a picture of a satellite dish and ask if anyone has one on their house.

Then they ask learners what they watch through their satellite dish, or what they would watch if they had a satellite dish.

After which, the teacher explains that quadratic equations are used to help design satellite dishes.

This simple process won’t solve the challenge of teaching the topic. But it does situate the introduction of the topic within personal experience that learners already possess.

This gives a degree of context, fixing the topic in learners’ minds, ready for the teacher to begin.

How can using personal experience help you to differentiate?

All learners have personal experience.

Therefore, this is a technique that has the potential to engage all learners.

Connecting personal experiences to formal learning is a way of contextualising and giving meaning to the latter.

This is likely to make the work done in lessons more accessible for learners.

By including opportunities to relate learning to personal experiences, the teacher helps break down some of the barriers learners may have erected in response to their past experiences of school.