Worked Examples and Scaffolding, Dept.

In teaching procedures for solving both word problems and numeric-only problems, an effective practice is one in which students imitate the techniques illustrated in a worked example. (Sweller, 2006). Subsequent problems given in class or in homework assignments progress to variants of the original problem that require them to stretch beyond the temporary support provided by the initial worked example; i.e., by “scaffolding”. Scaffolding is a process in which students are given problems that become increasingly more challenging, and for which temporary supports are removed. In so doing, students gain proficiency at one level of problem-solving which serves to both build confidence and prepare them for a subsequent leap in difficulty. For example, an initial worked example may be “John has 13 marbles and gives away 8. How many does he have left?” The process is simple subtraction. A variant of the original problem may be: “John has 13 marbles…