[ELTWeekly Volume 10, Issue 10 | May 7, 2018 | ISSN 0975-3036]
“All right—any questions? No? Go!” I told my eighth-grade integrated science students as we began a lesson in which they were to make and support a claim about where in the classroom they should put the starting point for a marble roller coaster. Most got right to work. However, one student looked blankly at his paper, broken pencil in hand. Another stared into space. A third crafted something distracting out of paper.
What had gone wrong? They didn’t raise their hands when I asked if anyone had a question. How could I reach these students?
My colleagues convinced me that these behaviors represented neither what my students knew nor how smart they were. Kids may fool around, but when they cannot produce anything for assignments that they know will impact their grade, there must be something else going on that I’m missing.
THE NEED FOR SCAFFOLDING
My school partners with Mills Teacher Scholars, a professional learning organization that facilitates collaborative inquiry for educators.