Scaffolding

Scaffolding is a pedagogical principle which refers to the way in which topics or skills can be broken down into their composite parts. It is an effective method of building knowledge, each step building upon the former.

The term was introduced by the theorist Vygotsky. Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) was a Soviet psychologist who also coined the term "zone of proximal development" and conducted many studies that led to instructional scaffolding. This is why the concept is often referred to as "Vygotsky scaffolding."

The Zone of proximal development essentially denotes the point at which a child is being stretched from their current knowledge base with support but not to the extent that they reach a point of beign stretched too far, the happy medium if you like.

Vygotsky focused his work on developmental psychology, and it was in the 1920s and early 1930s, towards the end of his career, that he developed the concept of ZPD. Vygotsky believed that educators should help students learn within their ZPD so that they can increase their skills and knowledge without becoming frustrated by things that are currently too difficult for them to accomplish.

Vygotsky came up with the idea of ZPD after extensive studying of how young children learn and the effectiveness of different teaching methods.

In practice, scaffolding helps us to build on a students knowledge in incremental steps that are catered to their cognitive stage and previous exposure to a skill or topic.

For more information on Scaffolding and ZPD, see below.