What Do We Do When Students Don't Have Prerequisite Knowledge?
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder discusses how scaffolding can help students access grade-level content even when they lack prerequisite knowledge.
Key Takeaways
- Scaffolding bridges the gap - Students without prerequisites can still access grade-level material with appropriate support
- Don't just teach below level - Always providing below-grade-level content ensures students never catch up
- Grade-level access is the goal - The aim is to get students to grade level, not to permanently accommodate their gaps
Transcript
What do we do when students don't have prerequisite knowledge or knowledge and skills that we at least perceive to be necessary for accessing higher level work?
This has come up in several of my sessions here at Learning Forward in D.C., and it's been very interesting to have that discussion, especially as it applies to different grade levels and subject areas.
Like one person said yesterday that they didn't really accept the idea of fact fluency in multiplication as foundational for higher level math.
And I think there's been a good discussion in my video on that that I did a couple of days ago and a reasonably compelling argument to be made that students can still access higher level math.
It's just less efficient, right?
It's just slower to do higher level math if you don't have a good grasp of the math facts and don't have fluency with them.
And of course, reading is the other big area that comes to mind, right?
Like it's very difficult for students to access higher level content, especially at the high school level.
if they're reading at an elementary level.
And this actually came up in my session that I was co-leading today with regard to text in an ELA class, right?
Like novels that students read in an English class need to be at grade level.
And I think this is where we go wrong.
Often we recognize that our students are not reading at grade level, so we give them text that is not at grade level.
It's below grade level so that they can access it.
But then they fall further behind because they're not getting grade level instruction.
They're not getting the content that will bring them up to where they need to be.
And we think, well, maybe if we start with lower level content, we can get them up to where they need to be.
And I think often that doesn't really happen.
And what we need to do instead is scaffold the grade level content.
And strangely enough, as often as I think about scaffolding, I haven't come across very many books or very many authors or experts on scaffolding.
So if you know of any, let me know whose books you like.
Who are your experts on scaffolding that you turn to And how does scaffolding apply to your subject area in particular, you know, there are different things that we can do to, you know, pre teach vocabulary to teach foundational knowledge within the unit.
And I would say as a science teacher who taught sixth and seventh grade.
I mostly would assume very little, you know, that I would assume that I'm going to have to at least review everything that students need to succeed in the unit.
But I know we can't do that forever, right?
Like if you are a chemistry teacher, I did my student teaching in chemistry, and you don't have time in chemistry to teach algebra also, but students do need algebra skills to do stoichiometry in particular.
So I'm curious how this applies to your subject in terms of students lacking...
foundational knowledge or skills in order to succeed with what you are actually responsible for teaching.
Who are your experts on scaffolding and how do you handle that?
Let me know.