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Helping Students Become Independent Learners

Teachers help students undertake new and more difficult tasks by offering them scaffolding.
Scaffolding is instructional support that allows students to complete tasks successfully while gaining new knowledge, skills, and strategies. Scaffolding helps students undertake new tasks on their own.

WCER researcher Martin Nystrand says that simply changing the kinds of tasks students are asked to do, or making them more difficult, is not enough to ensure higher achievement. Students must become aware of how and why the strategies work and how to engage them on their own.

Good teachers provide support as students develop and use their metacognitive skill and self-regulating capabilities in the English language arts classroom.

Scaffolding is a powerful tool in thinking about effective instruction across a wide range of contexts and is an important element in the planning and development of instructional activities.