Scaffolding with children that is.
It is expected that students will: ? identify elements of their own cultural backgrounds ? identify elements of Francophone culture in Canada You can find the Provincial Prescribed Learning Outcome document here. So, instead of having teacher-directed lessons discussing the elements of the Francophone culture in Canada and comparing it to our own cultural backgrounds, I handed the PLO’s to the students and let gave them ownership over how they wanted to explore these topics and how they wanted to demonstrate their learning. Even though we had opportunities to do Genius Hour throughout the year, it was still pretty foreign to them to have complete ownership over their own learning. They choose to work on their own or with a partner or in small groups.
Scaffolding is a support structure in the early days of learning. Think of it in the same way as scaffolding for a building - in the early days, while things are being constructed, the scaffolding is needed to make sure the structure is strong, but once the building is strong enough to stand on its own the scaffolding can be removed, one piece at a time. It's the same with scaffolding for learning - once the child is strong enough in it's grasp of something, the props can be removed one at a time.
