Identifying Scaffolding and Taxonomic Skills
Multiple Choice
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1.
Examine the following classroom scenario. Identify at least two scaffolding techniques and at least two Bloom´s taxonomic skills used in Mr. Liepins´ lesson plan.
Mr. Liepins teaches seventh grade social studies in a school where students come from a variety of backgrounds and economic levels. He has chosen to present a lesson on the homeless to his students, and begins by asking his students to take out a piece of paper and quickly write everything they think they know about homeless people in about two minutes. After students have worked on this brainstorming activity individually, the teacher has students volunteer their responses, which are tabulated and written on the board. The teacher then presents a short PowerPoint presentation detailing the top ten myths about homeless people, exposing misinformation that may exist in the minds of his students as to the causes of homelessness.
Students then read a short story about a homeless family. After reading the story, the students form groups of three and create a poster with three quotes from the story and a corresponding symbol that best represents the meaning of the quote. Each student in the group is given a different colored pen, and must write his/her contribution in that color. After this poster is finished, the groups present back to the class as to the quotes and symbols they have chosen.
For homework, Mr. Liepins tells his students that they are to write a letter to their mother imagining that they are homeless. They are to use their imagination, describing with vivid images the sights and smells that they have experienced in their travels in the downtown area of Kansas City, Missouri. This ´letter to mom´ will be at least 4 paragraphs long, and will be due at the beginning of the next class period. Mr. Liepins ends the class by reading an example ´letter to mom´ aloud.
example:
Some scaffolding techniques used in this lesson:
Bridging
Bridging provides a personal connection between the learner and the theme of the class, and taps into the student´s prior knowledge relevant to the class theme. An example of bridging in this lesson is the ´quick-write´ over homelessness. A quick-write is a focused 3 to 5 minute activity where a student writes down as much information as possible about a given topic in the allotted time. This activity helps to provide a personal connection between the learner and the theme of the lesson.
Text Representation
Text Representation invites students to extend their understandings and apply them in new ways. For example, students may have difficulty reading a story about the homeless experience in the United States. They may understand the main idea and the significance of the story, but may be confused by the unfamiliar words that they encounter. One way to represent the content in a more user-friendly way might be to have the students read the story as a group, then have small groups of three students create a collaborative poster, choosing symbols from the story that they believe have the most significance and communicate main ideas. Then the students might look for quotes from the selection that seem to go along with the symbols. In this way the text has been presented in a new way, which may help some of the students understand the content of the story more clearly.
Modeling
Modeling clarifies procedures through direct experience, and provides concrete examples of what a student´s finished product should look like. In this lesson, Mr. Liepins read an example ´letter to mom´ essay to his students, which is an example of modeling. The main idea here is that any task that is introduced for the first time should be modeled, and that students need to be given clear samples of what is requested of them for imitation.
Some Bloom´s Taxonomic skills used in this lesson:
Knowledge
This category involves simple knowledge of dates, events, places, facts, terms, basic concepts, or answers. Students are not required to use this information in any practical way, but are simply asked to recall previously learned material. In this lesson, the students were asked to recall whatever they could about the issue of homelessness during the quickwrite activity.
Comprehension
This category requires a student to demonstrate an understanding of the information. Students may show this by summarizing main ideas, translating a mathematical word problem to numbers, or by interpreting charts or graphs. In this lesson, students were asked to summarize main ideas by choosing symbols and quotes in the collaborative poster that related to the story of homelessness.
Synthesis
This category deals with the task of putting together parts to form a new whole. This might involve working with parts and putting them together in a creative new way, or using old ideas to come up with new ones. In this lesson plan, Mr. Liepins assigns his students the task of writing a ´letter to mom´ incorporating their newly learned concepts about homeless life, which involves synthesis.
Technology Enriched Learning
