Scaffolding Learning in Various Subjects

You're listening to The Teaching Toolbox with Brittany and Ellie.

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Join them as they talk

all things middle school.

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Brittany: Hello.

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Welcome

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back to the Teaching Toolbox

podcast with Brittany and Ellie.

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We are here and we've got a guest

speaker with us, Leah Cleary.

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Let's hear all about who Leah is.

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Leah, can you tell us a

little about yourself?

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Leah Cleary: Sure.

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I am a teacher.

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I've been in the classroom for 23 years.

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I teach secondary.

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I've taught middle school and high school.

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I've spent most of my

career teaching high school.

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I actually have taught

English and history.

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I think I might've already

said that, but that's okay.

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Brittany: Do you wanna tell

us a little about your store?

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Leah Cleary: Oh sure.

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So my store on Teachers Pay

Teachers is Leah Cleary.

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So you can find me at Leah Cleary.

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You can find me on the

web at leahcleary.com.

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And.

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My store on Teachers Pay Teachers

is social studies majority.

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I design complete curriculums.

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I've got one for World

History for Economics.

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I've got one for sociology, psychology's

in the works, the first units out.

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Uh, and I've got a bunch of individual

resources for ELA and social studies.

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Ellie: She's got it

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all.

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Brittany: That's awesome.

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Yep.

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So today we're gonna talk about

scaffolding in the classroom.

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Leah is a pro at scaffolding

for her students and making sure

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that they have a good foundation.

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So let's talk about what

scaffolding is, first of all.

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Scaffolding is when you create a

foundation for your students and you

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help them build up their skills so that

they are able to do things on their own.

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So you slowly give them piece by piece

and you help model what they're doing,

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what you are doing, so that they can

then do it by themselves and you add

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one piece after another after another

until they can do it all themselves.

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And so, we're gonna talk about different

ways you can use scaffolding in the

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classroom in different subjects.

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Who's got an example of

scaffolding that they've done?

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Leah Cleary: I can jump in here.

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I'm right now at the beginning of

the school year and currently I'm

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teaching world history, AP World

History in Theory of Knowledge for the

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International Baccalaureate Program and.

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I like to envision scaffolding,

like you said, as building and we're

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building a tower, and at the top of

the tower are all of the skills that

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we want for our students to have.

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And so we start at the bottom, at

the beginning of the school year,

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especially post pandemic, and

anyone who has been in the classroom

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before and after the pandemic knows

there's a huge, huge difference.

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So we start at the bottom, and as

Brittany was saying, you know, we're,

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putting the, the support in that the

students need, and as they're getting

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it, we're removing that support, so

that we're building a very sturdy

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tower going up to the ultimate goal.

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And so the first place where I

start scaffolding with my world

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history students is note taking.

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Note taking is such a basic skill and is

something that as teachers, especially

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teachers of high school students, and

especially when they are in an advanced

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placement or IB class or gifted, honors,

anything like that, we tend to think

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that they know how to do it and that

couldn't be further from the truth.

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So I'm gonna start with note taking as

an example, since that's the first thing

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I do with my world history students.

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So I teach them Cornell Notes and what

we do at first is I will start with

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a presentation, and the presentation

will have the learning target, our

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focus for the day, and I'll say, okay.

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This is the topic for your Cornell Notes.

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It says, I can explain the

legacies of classical empires.

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And so the title they would put would

be Legacies of Classical Empires,

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and I would model this for them, and

then I'd say, okay, these are the

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empires that we're gonna talk about.

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We're gonna talk about Persia, we're

gonna talk about Hellenistic Empires.

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We are gonna talk about Rome,

and we're gonna talk about China.

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And so they then make four

pages of Cornell Notes, all

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of them with the same title.

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Exactly.

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Like I'm doing on the board.

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I'm modeling it.

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The title, legacies of Classical

Empires, and then one is Persia, one's

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Hellenistic, one's Rome, and one is China.

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And then the question is, well, how

are we going to organize these notes?

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Because students, our students

tend to be really lost on that.

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They have no idea how

to organize their notes.

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And I think the best way to

do that for social studies

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is, is by considering themes.

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And when we consider themes in my

class, and you know, you can use

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any of these acronyms for themes.

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You know, there's SPEC, there's PERSIA,

there's, there's all kinds of acronyms.

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I use PIECES, and so I usually say,

we're gonna put the PIE on the front.

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You know, the first three,

political, innovation, environmental.

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And we're gonna put the C E S on the back.

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All right, so the PIE on the

front, the CES on the back.

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So cultural, economic, social.

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So we talk about what

all of those things are.

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We discuss what those different themes

are, and then we just look at a slide.

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And the slide just has information

about Persia on it, right?

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And the slide might be talking about the

founding of Persia the Persian Empire, you

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know, the Achaemenids, all of this stuff.

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And I'm like, now I, I

don't know that word.

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What does that mean?

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What, what does Achaemenid mean?

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What does Satrap mean?

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Where would we put that?

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So we put that over in the key concepts,

because that's how Cornell Notes are.

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There are three sections.

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You have key concepts and questions.

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You have notes, and then

you have the summary,

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right?

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so just model through it and

just completely talk through.

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Okay.

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Here we're talking about Cyrus, the

great founding the uh, Persian Empire.

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We're talking about how he expanded.

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What's that gonna go under?

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Political.

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Here we're talking

about the Persian Roads.

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Innovation.

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You know, so we're, we're filling it out.

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We're talking about they

had standardized currency.

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Economics, and so they're

putting it there, and then at

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the end we summarize the notes.

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Right?

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And it would be different for whoever's

doing it, but I'm modeling it for them.

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So we'll go back through the

notes and this is our summary.

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And so there, we've modeled it.

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So the next day it's Rome, right?

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And so at this point, they're

gonna do it with a partner.

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And so you put up on the screen.

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Here's the learning target.

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Same learning target.

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We're talking about Rome today.

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Um, so we're on the Rome

section of the notes and let's

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set the timer for 10 minutes.

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Look at this slide, discuss

it with your partner.

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Figure out where the pieces go, where

the themes go, where you would put

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the information in the themes, do

you see a term you don't understand?

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Sounds like a key concept to me.

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Right?

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And so then afterwards we would

discuss it and then they would

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work together on a summary.

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And then we would discuss it and

we would go through, you know,

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the next day I'd take out another

piece of the scaffolding depending

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on how quickly they're getting it.

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And so, you know, I've

already removed myself, I.

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And so I've laid the foundation,

and so now they have their partner.

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And so let's say they're

ready to try it on their own.

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So again, set the timer, let them practice

with Hellenistic, and let them do it

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for 10 minutes on their own and then

have them discuss it with their table.

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I, I have tables.

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I know not everybody has tables, but have

'em, you know, if you have 'em in group.

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So four, have 'em discuss it with their

group of four, and then, uh, you know,

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discuss a little bit with the class.

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Summarize, remove the second piece.

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Eventually, by the end of it, they are

doing it on their own while notes are up

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there or while they're doing a reading.

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You know, if they're doing a reading

in their textbook, Hey, read these two

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pages and take some notes over China.

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Well, how, how am I gonna organize it?

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PIECES, you know this already, do that.

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And so now when we're ready for

the historical thinking skill of

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comparison, they're naturally ready.

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'cause you know, we're gonna compare,

we're gonna write, they're naturally

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ready to compare apples to apples

as opposed to apples to oranges.

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'cause if they're comparing Persia

and Rome, they're going, they're

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compare politics to politics,

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Right?

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Economy to economy.

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And so, you know, it's

just, it's very deliberate.

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It's very, very deliberate.

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And you're removing the

pieces very deliberately too.

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You're not just throwing

all of it at them at once.

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So that, you know, by the time they get

it, they get it, they have a new skill.

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This is something that they can

carry with them beyond my classroom.

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This is something that they can use

when they're just reading a text to take

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notes and, and they're good with that.

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And that's how I introduce any of

the big skills that I want for my

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students to understand just by putting

the scaffolding in, pulling it out.

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Putting it in for the next step.

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Pulling it out.

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Ellie: So it sounds like, if I'm

hearing you correctly, and I love,

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I love this, this is fantastic.

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So you model first

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Leah Cleary: Mm-hmm.

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Ellie: they do it with a partner.

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Leah Cleary: Mm-hmm.

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Ellie: They do it on their own.

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Leah Cleary: yes.

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Ellie: So generally, very generally.

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But if we're just kind of looking

at those just to summarize

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those steps, that's fantastic.

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I love how you ta talked about like, then

they're gonna compare apples to apples

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'cause they have their things set up

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Leah Cleary: exactly They're ready

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Ellie: the same way.

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Leah Cleary: Yeah.

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And, and I actually have a lesson on

ancient Egypt on my website, if you go to

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world History Resources, And if you sign

up, you get that resource and shows you

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exactly how to do it with ancient Egypt.

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So you could actually use

that in your classroom when

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you talk about ancient Egypt.

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Ellie: Oh, that's fantastic.

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Leah Cleary: yeah, so it's

really, it's really cool.

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Um, all of the resources in my store, I

have cloze notes with fill in the blank.

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I think that's important because

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we are required to do those as

modifications for some students,

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but.

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Those are modifications and that

for students in general, we, we

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need to teach them the skill.

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Ellie: Absolutely.

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I think it's easy to assume when they come

to you that somebody else taught them,

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or somebody else already gave them

that skill or helped them with that

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skill and that they're gonna know.

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But that's not the case obviously,

from, you know, your experiences

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at the high school level.

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Leah Cleary: No, not even

with, not even with ap

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Ellie: Right.

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Leah Cleary: and again, especially post

pandemic, they're, they're not ready.

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But we are doing it.

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I'm, I'm department chair for

social studies and, and we're, you

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know, doing this right now with

our general world history too.

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Ellie: Okay.

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Leah Cleary: so

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we're, we're.

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Brittany: Sorry?

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What do you do with a kid who maybe put

the Persian money say they put it under,

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uh, innovation instead of economics.

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What do you do then?

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Leah Cleary: Well, for the

Persians, that was an innovation.

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So, you know, because it was an

innovation, a lot of the things

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that the Persians did like

across all the categories, you

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know, the Persians were, they were

first for a lot of these things.

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So I would ask them, why

did you put it there?

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And then if they told me

that, I'd say fantastic.

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You know, the Romans, they They

didn't innovate this, they did this.

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It wasn't an innovation for the

Romans, but it was for the Persians.

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You might also wanna put that under

economics so that if we're comparing

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the Persians to the Romans, maybe you

have standard currency to compare.

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Brittany: So you're asking them to like

validate what they did and why they

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did, why they put it there, but also

reinforcing them in their decisions,

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Leah Cleary: Yes.

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Brittany: Great.

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Awesome.

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Ellie, how do you use scaffolding in math?

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Ellie: Well, some things that I was

thinking about as we were talking, um, is

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of course having notes in a different way.

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Sometimes we have specific examples that

we want students to work through, and

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so maybe we would have, um, parts of.

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Equations filled in for students

before we do the entire thing on our

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own, or solving a simpler problem.

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You know, if we want to do a

complicated equation, we might have

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to go solve a simpler problem first

so that they understand the concept

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of how equations work before we move

on to something more challenging.

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And then pre-teaching vocabulary, I

think is, is one way that, you know,

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we've really set the foundation, like

what, what do these terms actually mean

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before we start jumping into some certain

procedures or processes and, and using

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those vocabulary terms, assuming that

they know what they are, but taking

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time to pre-teach the vocabulary.

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Look at specific examples

of the vocabulary.

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Maybe bring in one or two examples,

um, of the procedure to see where

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the vocabulary fits into that.

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Um, just some small things like that.

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Do you have any other

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ideas about math?

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Brittany: I think we scaffold a lot

in math when we set up the problem

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and we'll do an example for them

and then we'll ask them, okay, here

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I've done three of the four steps.

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What's the fourth step?

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Ellie: Mm-hmm.

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Brittany: And then, then we'll

do it again and we'll say,

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okay, do steps three and four.

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Now do steps two, three, and four.

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And we slowly have them do more and

more of the problem by themselves,

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Ellie: Mm-hmm.

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Brittany: um, until they've got it.

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Ellie: Right.

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Brittany: and yeah.

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Ellie: As Leah was talking

about the Cornell Notes, I,

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I haven't used Cornell notes.

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I know that some math teachers do use

them, but it made me think about the

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Math Wheels that I have where we do

have the key terms and we talk about

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the key terms in one section, and then

we, we take specific notes about the

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different procedures or the processes,

and then there's usually a practice

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section at the end where they start to

go through the problems by themselves.

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But some, some math skills lend themselves

very well to breaking it down step by

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step by step in each different section.

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And then, you add on a step as you go.

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So not the same, but it just made me

think about, about using them in that way.

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Leah Cleary: Yeah, I

love those math wheels.

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If I taught math, I would

definitely use those.

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They're really cool looking.

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I've seen them in your store.

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Ellie: Oh, thanks, What about E L A?

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Brittany: I think

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Ellie: I'm sorry, go

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ahead.

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Brittany: was just about to say that.

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Yeah, I was just about to go

in that direction, so thanks.

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Ellie: Sure.

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Brittany: I think we use

scaffolding a lot in ELA.

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Starting at the basic sentence

structure, a sentence, you know,

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has have . the five parts, um, of a

sentence and then working up to how

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a paragraph should be structured.

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and using scaffolding for that and

helping them, you know, get, like

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we used Step Up to Writing when I

was teaching, and so we had a green

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sentence as a . As an introduction

sentence for the paragraph and a green

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sentence to conclude the paragraph.

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And then in between we'd have a yellow

sentence that explained the information

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and then a red sentence that went into

more depth, and then another yellow.

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That explained it more and then red,

that made it more in depth and so on.

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So they kind of equated

it to like a hamburger.

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Ellie: Oh yeah.

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Brittany: had all the different colors.

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Ellie: Mm-hmm.

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Brittany: Um, and so I.

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Eventually we'd, we would do like

the green and then they'd have to

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do the yellow and the red, or we'd

do the green and the yellow and

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they'd have to do the red, you know?

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And so it, it was the same kind of

process about giving them some of

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the information and then having them

build out more and more on their own

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until they could do it by themselves.

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Ellie: And that

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Leah Cleary: I,

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Ellie: grade?

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Was that sixth grade or

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Brittany: Yes.

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That was

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Ellie: grade.

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Sorry if you said that.

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Leah Cleary: for ELA, you

know, to talk about that.

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'cause like at the paragraph

level, I really like that idea so

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that you're giving them a frame.

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Like, and you already have the content of

the frame and then they're filling it in.

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I like that a lot.

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I'm also really fascinated with the

sentence level, especially if you look

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at it for students who aren't readers,

because so many of our students aren't

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readers, and if you're not a reader,

then it's very difficult to be a writer.

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Ellie: Hmm.

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Leah Cleary: because we

do learn through examples.

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You know, we learn by having

things modeled for us.

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That's how we learn to speak.

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That's how we learn to walk.

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That's how we learn to

do everything that we do.

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And so I'm fascinated by the

whole idea of sentence imitation.

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And so you take a sentence from a

piece of literature, and it could be

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any sentence, and you know, it may

be a really complex sentence and.

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you imitate that for the students?

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No.

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The content's gonna be different,

but the structure's the same.

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then you have them init imitate it

for you or try to imitate it for

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you so that they're playing with

different sentence structures.

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Ellie: mm-hmm.

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Leah Cleary: And that's the

writing program that I have

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in my store writing blocks.

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It's based on that, um, just at

the very basic sentence level, And

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I tell you, a couple years ago, a

book writing revolution came out

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and there are just some really

wonderful ideas about scaffolding

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writing in there for any discipline.

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and and they start with the sentence

level, and then they move to the

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paragraph level, they move to,

you know, you're writing an essay.

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Ellie: Do you know who the author is?

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The of that book

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Leah Cleary: Not

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off the

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Ellie: case anybody is um, interested in

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Leah Cleary: I was, I was interested

because my writing blocks program, I

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then, a couple years later, I started

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hearing about Writing Revolution and

I thought, that sounds really cool.

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And then I thought, well that sounds

a lot like what my writing blocks was.

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And so I was like, did,

did I steal from them?

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Did they steal from me?

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And then I like got the book I

was like, no, we literally came

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out with this like a year apart.

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And I

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and looked at this stuff and in

their prologue they're talking

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about deliberate practice.

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And like I talk about deliberate

practice and writing blocks.

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And so there's a lot of similarities.

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They're not the same,

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but it's really kind of cool.

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Um, what I like about writing blocks, mine

writing blocks, it's just for ELA, right?

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Ellie: Okay.

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Leah Cleary: But writing revolution

that can be used in any subject.

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Ellie: Hmm

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Leah Cleary: Yeah.

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And so it's all about embedding

literacy in any subject.

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And so that's a big initiative

at my school right now.

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we're really working on that.

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And in my department we're, you know,

uh, world history is spearheading

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it.

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And so I want for everyone in

my department to read that book,

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I'm trying to make that happen.

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Ellie: and that would be for math too.

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Just because, you know, we

have the non-readers in math,

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Leah Cleary: Mm-hmm.

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Ellie: tackling the word

problems is, is a challenge.

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Um, you know, so it would be great to

incorporate something like that, or

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read that book and see how that can

be used in the math class as well.

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Leah Cleary: Exactly.

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And, with our literacy initiative,

it's, it's across all disciplines, you

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know, looking at what literacy looks

like in the different disciplines.

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you know, you said you start with

vocabulary and that's key for math, esp,

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I mean, don't always think

about that, but it's key.

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And they have to have a basic

understanding of what everything

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means that they're trying

to do before they can do it.

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Ellie: Right.

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Exactly.

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Yeah.

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Brittany: I think vocabulary

is key for all subjects.

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You gotta start with the vocabulary

first and then move on from there.

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Leah Cleary: Yeah.

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Brittany: So,

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Leah Cleary: I agree.

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How, um, as far as scaffolding for

vocab goes, uh, how do you, because I'm

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interested in how you would do that.

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Like how do you scaffold

the vocab for math?

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Ellie: In some cases you can even, you

can look at, you know, pre prefixes,

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suffixes and things like that.

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Um, and thinking about some

of your basic operation words.

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For starters, you know, there

are a lot of kids who don't even

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remember what sum, or a quotient or

a product those kinds of things mean.

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So basic operation words.

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And then it really depends on what

particular topic you're thinking about.

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You know, if you're thinking about

fractions, Starting with, you know,

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numerator, denominator, and working

on, on that basic stuff before you

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can get into something more complex.

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Brittany: I like to give

the kids, uh, flashcards.

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I, and then I have them do a lot

of like vocabulary word work where

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they're using their flashcards.

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They're filling out, you know,

different word puzzles and so

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that they're using their words.

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As much as possible playing games

with the words, that kind of thing, so

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that they're just using them over and

over and over again, and so they're

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becoming more second nature to them.

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So,

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Leah Cleary: Yeah, and I think

that repetition's probably key.

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Well, it's definitely key in, in

any subject when we're trying to

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lay a foundation, build that tower.

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Brittany: So how, how else do

you use scaffolding In history?

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Leah Cleary: So I definitely, you know,

notes is how I, is, how I, I start.

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And, uh, we, I use it

for annotation as well.

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Um, I have them annotate the standards.

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So if it's, if it's a regular world

history class, then I would take the

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state standards and give them the one.

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Okay.

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These are, this is the standard

and these are at Substandards.

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This is what we're working on right now.

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And we would break it down.

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Um, if it's AP, we use the CED,

the course and exam description.

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And so, you know, sometimes you have to,

well you do have to get really basic with

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this at first, because I find that it's

a really foreign concept to the students.

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You know, it's something that maybe we

think of as really, really basic, but They

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don't, you know, go forth and annotate.

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They look at you blankly.

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And so we have colors and I'll say, okay,

we're gonna highlight the verb green.

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This says that we're supposed to explain.

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Let's think about what explain means.

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Well, it means that you identify a

specific example in the case of history,

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and then you take it a step further and

you explain why or how it's significant.

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as far as the standard are the course

and exam description goes right.

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Um, so you start with the

verb and then highlight things

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that you don't know in red.

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All right?

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Things that you're gonna need to

define and highlight things that

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you're going to need to find a

specific example for, because you

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know, a lot of times for history,

the standards can be pretty broad.

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I mean, this really isn't the

case for US history, but this is

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definitely the case for world history.

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The standards can be pretty broad and

so students would need to find specific

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examples of, and I keep going back to it

'cause it's what we're talking about right

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now, but classical empires, you know, if

you say classical empires, that's broad.

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Gimme some specific examples, right?

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And so that's one way that

they can use their textbook.

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and I know that textbooks had, if,

if you have a textbook, textbooks

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had fall, have fallen out of favor

for so many different reasons.

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But I think that it is invaluable to get

the kids reading different types of texts.

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So, you know, source analysis, yes.

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Primary, secondary documents for world

history, for any history, but also.

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Don't say, read 50 pages and answer the

questions, but no, say go to page 55.

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Look at the section from, uh, the

ancient Persians to the section on Rome.

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Right?

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Take a look at that

one section on page 55.

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Uh, read it and take the standard,

right, and find examples.

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What's the verb telling you to do?

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Is it telling you to identify?

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Then you just need an example.

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Is it telling you to explain?

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Then you need an example and you

need to explain the why or how.

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And of course I would start

that by showing them as well.

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Brittany: That's very interesting.

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I think, at sixth grade I use it

in a much more like general way

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scaffolding in a much more general way.

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I don't use the standards

so deliberately as you do.

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But that's very interesting how you,

how you make them use the standards

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and, and really focus on those.

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on those terms.

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I like that.

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That's really cool.

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Leah Cleary: Well, I just, you know,

one thing that if, if you send them

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into reading without a purpose, um,

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then they're, they're lost,

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Brittany: Yeah.

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Leah Cleary: So if you send them into

reading without a purpose, they're lost.

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But likewise, um, if you always

have a really structured guide

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for them, then they never learn

how to do it on their own.

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Ellie: Hmm

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Leah Cleary: My argument there is

that they need to learn how to be

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learners, and that's more important now

than it ever was simply because, you

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know, old industrial economy's gone.

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They're not training

to be factory workers,

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Ellie: mm-hmm.

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Leah Cleary: Right?

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Even if they do keep the same job

for 30 years, it's gonna change.

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Think about how rapidly

technology is changing everything.

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They're gonna have to learn how to learn.

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Ellie: Mm-hmm.

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Leah Cleary: they're gonna constantly have

to relearn how to do things because of

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the rate at which technology is expanding

and is growing and is innovating.

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So,

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Brittany: Very good point.

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Ellie: Very good point.

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Yeah.

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Brittany: All right.

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Leah, can you remind us

where we can find you?

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Leah Cleary: You can find

me@leahcleary.com and you can

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also find me on Teachers Pay

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Teachers.

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My store is Leah Cleary.

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I am a secondary English

and social studies teacher.

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Brittany: Thank you so much.

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It was so great to have you.

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Leah Cleary: Thank you.

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I really enjoyed it.

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This was a lot of fun for me.

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Ellie: Awesome.

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Thank you, Leah.

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You were amazing.

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Leah Cleary: So are you both?

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