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Building on aspects of Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory centering around social interaction and adult scaffolding as essential to children’s learning, this study investigated the most prominently used strategies by eight teachers to scaffold social and emotional learning (SEL) in preschool children (ages 3–4) in the context of remote instruction during the 2021–2022 school year amidst COVID-19. These teachers (seven females and one male) came from two urban preschools funded by their local Board of Education in the state of New Jersey in the United States. These teachers (ages 28–44 years, M = 32 years) varied in teaching experience from five to 29 years (M = 13 years). Each teacher was interviewed for an average of 40 min virtually via Zoom. The interviews were digitally recorded and then transcribed for analysis. A thematic analysis of the data revealed that the three most salient strategies the teachers implemented to virtually scaffold the children’s SEL were: (1) involving book reading and discussion, (2) utilizing visuals, and (3) engaging in targeted conversations. In addition to adapting these three traditional strategies applied during in-person instruction to remote instruction, the teachers creatively and appropriately leveraged online resources to further scaffold and enhance children’s SEL in the unconventional virtual environment, thereby expanding their toolboxes. Despite their intentional efforts, these teachers found that there were unconventional opportunities and novel challenges in scaffolding children’s SEL during remote instruction not traditionally found during in-person instruction. Collectively, the findings of this study suggest that in-person instruction, due to its social nature, is still the most optimal condition for promoting children’s SEL.

The influence of one teacher's scaffolding moves on children's performance in free-flowing child-led small-group discussions was investigated. Three moves were examined: prompting for and praising the use of evidence, asking for clarification, and challenging. Lag sequential analysis was applied to a corpus of over 5,300 speaking turns during 30 discussions to identify recurrent turn-by-turn patterns of teacher-child and child-child talk initiated by the teacher's moves. A complex system of influence among discussion participants was documented in which the teacher's moves had delayed effects as well as immediate effects, indirect as well as direct effects, and reciprocal instead of unidirectional effects. Some children appropriated scaffolding moves of the teacher and began to spontaneously employ the moves in later discussions.

Theory and research have demonstrated the importance of teacher scaffolding to facilitate effective classroom conversations during shared book reading. When teachers scaffold conversations, young students can develop language skills more quickly. The authors describe a scaffolding framework and findings from research on how open‐ended questions provide the first step in facilitating extended conversations that adjust scaffolding upward and downward to match student responses. The authors then outline suggestions for how teachers can scaffold conversations during shared book reading.

In this exploratory, descriptive study we examined how discussion goals were accomplished during face-to-face and online case-based discussions facilitated by the same co-instructors. An analysis of discussion transcripts suggests that despite different instructor and student participation patterns across contexts, the instructors' goals of creating social cohesion and supporting students' case understanding were equally met. However, coverage of the targeted problem space indicated greater attention to \"problem finding\" (i.e., identifying relevant issues) by face-to-face students and greater attention to \"problem solving\" (i.e., identifying workable solutions) by online students, as indicated by the frequencies with which these different aspects were discussed. We interpret results by considering how the affordances of each context shaped both teacher-student interactions and students' coverage of the problem-finding and problem-solving space.

Discussions of power and privilege, oppression, and structural inequities in classrooms can produce complex understanding and critical analysis when facilitated effectively. In this article we present the critical conversations model for facilitating conversations that open up space for discussing such issues and encourage the development of critical consciousness and reflection through experiential learning. The model provides flexible scaffolding for instructors to use to navigate their way through classroom tensions and capitalize on spontaneous learning opportunities. Theoretical underpinnings of the model are explained, followed by a description of the model. Implications for social work education and next steps are discussed.

Even though student-led small-group book discussions about fiction have been a curricular staple, teachers still contend with surface-level discussions and students who have difficulty with creating meaning together. Based on their previous findings, the authors explore building a foundation for discussions (for teachers new to literature study) and scaffolding deeper discussions (for teachers working on deeper, dialogic discussions). Suggestions emphasize scaffolding students to expand their perspectives, become more metacognitive, and use transmediation to communicate the abstract. The activities/strategies taken together demonstrate that teachers have a dual responsibility in their classrooms: teaching students how to engage in deeper conversations and helping students value what can be accomplished through them. When teachers commit to this dual responsibility, students are more able to learn deeply.

Using case study analysis and a cognitive theoretical orientation, we examine elements of knowledge for teaching needed by a mathematician to orchestrate whole-class discussions in an undergraduate mathematics classroom. The instructor, an experienced teacher and mathematics researcher, used an inquiry-oriented curriculum to teach a differential equations course for the first time after teaching it with traditional lecture methods for many years. Examples of classroom teaching and interview data demonstrate that, despite having extensive teaching experience and possessing strong content knowledge, some instructors may still face challenges when trying to provide analytic scaffolding to move whole-class discussions toward a lesson's mathematical goals. We also hypothesize several component practices necessary for the successful use of analytic scaffolding. Our analysis focuses on the relationship between the instructor's pedagogical content knowledge and specialized content knowledge and his capacity to enact these component practices during whole-class discussions.

The concept of scaffolding can be used to describe various types of adult guidance, in multiple settings, across different time scales. This article clarifies what we mean by scaffolding, considering several questions specifically for scaffolding in mathematics: What theoretical assumptions are framing scaffolding? What is being scaffolded? At what level is scaffolding implemented? What is the setting for scaffolding? And lastly, how can scaffolding manage the tension between providing appropriate calibrated support while also providing opportunities beyond learners’ current understandings? The paper describes how attention to mathematical practices can maintain a sociocultural theoretical framing for scaffolding and move scaffolding beyond procedural fluency. The paper first specifies the sociocultural theoretical assumptions framing the concept of scaffolding, with particular attention to mathematical practices. The paper provides three examples of scaffolding mathematical practices in two settings, individual and whole-class. Lastly, the paper considers how two teacher moves during scaffolding, proleptic questioning and revoicing, can serve to provide appropriate calibrated support while also creating opportunities beyond current proficiency.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the potential of the substitution, augmentation, modification and redefinition (SAMR) model as a research method via a project that aimed to investigate pre-service teachers' negotiation of data-rich environments.Design/methodology/approachThe project that underpins this paper saw the author working with a group of seven pre-service teachers through an online learning community on WhatsApp to explore their understanding of increasingly complex computational topics associated with the “Implications and Impacts” component of the digital technologies curriculum.FindingsThe knowledge and experiences of the pre-service teachers suggest considerable unexplored potential through the alignment of the SAMR model in online learning communities.Originality/valueThe paper draws attention to a range of opportunities associated with prompting discussion about increasingly complex topics in online learning communities. The adoption of the SAMR model offers a framework in education and the social sciences. It stresses the affordances enabled due to the personalized, ubiquitous and situated nature of the method. Unique contributions include the interpretive and critical approaches discussed in terms of research methods. The paper may be of value to researchers who are interested in a scaffolded means to engage with participants through an online learning community.

To promote rich discourse around scientific and engineering practices, teachers may turn to engineering design-based science curricula; however, this has discursive demands which have yet to be examined in a unit focused on integration of engineering and science. To investigate these discursive demands, we expand on the definition of discourse to include the ways of knowing, doing, talking, reading, writing, and context within science and engineering—and refer to these as disciplinary Discourses. The following major research question guided this study: how are multiple Discourses enacted by both the teacher during whole class discussions and students in small groups in an engineering design-based curricular unit? In this descriptive case study, we investigated these disciplinary Discourses in a design-based unit that focused on integration of engineering into a sixth-grade genetics unit through whole-class videos and audio recordings of a target student group. Our findings suggest that while the Discourses present in whole class discussions often reflected the focus of the daily lesson, this unit creates a space for multidisciplinary Discourse to emerge between science and engineering. Also, this teacher merged everyday and more technical disciplinary Discourses to scaffold the students’ understanding. Finally, we observed multidisciplinary Discourses between science and engineering emerge in our student group, suggesting that students can successfully integrate the two disciplines. This study therefore begins to investigate the disciplinary Discourses present in a design-based curricular unit and specifically multidisciplinary Discourses that may enhance students’ understanding of both science and engineering.