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Appendix D

E

APPENDIX D

Scaffolding Design Framework (Quintana et al. 2004, pg. 345)†

This research focused on software that supports Scaffolding in science enquiries and developed a Scaffolding Design Framework to focus its use. It features Inquiry Components each with major Guidelines, each guideline in turn containing Strategies to employ towards accomplishment. Such research can and should be extended into other subject areas and the software lists updated. link

  1. Scaffolding Guidelines

Scaffolding Strategies

Science Inquiry Component: Sense Making

  1. Use Representations and Language that bridge learners' understanding

  1. Provide visual conceptual organizers to give access to functionality

  2. Use descriptions off complex concepts that build on learners' intuitive ideas

  3. Embed expert guidance to help learners use and apply science content

  1. Organize Tools and Artifacts around the semantics of the discipline

  1. Make disciplinary strategies explicit in learner interactions with the tool

  2. Make disciplinary strategies explicit in the artifacts learners create

  1. Use representations that learners can inspect in different ways to reveal important properties of underlying data

  1. Provide representations that can be inspected to reveal underlying properties of data

  2. Enable learners to inspect multiple views of the same object or data

  3. Give learners “malleable representations” that allow them to directly manipulate representations

Science Inquiry Component: Process Management

  1. Provide structure for complex tasks and functionality

  1. Restrict a complex task by setting useful boundaries for learners

  2. Describe complex tasks by using ordered and unordered task decompositions

  3. Constrain the space of activities by using functional modes

  1. Embed expert guidance about scientific practices

  1. Embed expert guidance to clarify characteristics of scientific practices

  2. Embed expert guidance to indicate the rationales for scientific practices

  1. Automatically Handle non-salient routine tasks

  1. Automate non-salient portions of tasks to reduce cognitive demands

  2. Facilitate the organization of work products

  3. Facilitate navigation among tools and activities

Science Inquiry Component: Articulation and Reflection

  1. Facilitate ongoing articulation and reflection during the investigation

  1. Provide reminders and guidance to facilitate productive planning

  2. Provide reminders and guidance to facilitate productive monitoring

  3. Provide reminders and guidance to facilitate articulation during sense-making

  4. Highlight epistemic features of scientific practices


†Quintana, Chris; Reiser, Brian J.; Davis, Elizabeth A.; Krajcik, Joseph; Fretz, Eric; Duncan, Ravit Golan; Kyza, Eleni; Edelson, Daniel and Soloway, Elliot (2004), A Scaffolding Design Framework for Software to Support Science Inquiry, The Journal of the Learning Sciences, Vol. 13, No. 3, Scaffolding (2004), pp. 337-386.