Scaffolding Paper Assignment

Purpose

The purpose of the Scaffolding Project is to:

• Familiarize you with Vygotsky’s concept of scaffolding through practical experience;
• Enhance your knowledge of developmental terms discussed in the book and online lessons; and
• Provide you with the opportunity to interact with a child, putting into practice the four goals of studying child development — to describe, predict, explain, and promote optimal development.

Overview

You will select a task that you can do with a child (between 2 and 10 years), and you will analyze that task in terms of physical, cognitive and/or social demands. You will then perform the task with the child (using Vygotsky’s concept of scaffolding) and observe how the child interacts with you. Finally, you will write up your experience and submit it to the drop box.

Task Selection

Be sure to select a task that you will do with the child – it is very important that this project is a new experience for you and the child. DO NOT recall a previous experience you had with a child and write about it.

You should choose a task that is somewhat above the child’s level of ability (not one that the child can complete by herself/himself, but not one that is too difficult for the child to do, even with help). Further instructions on choosing an age-appropriate task can be found in the document entitled “How to do well on the Scaffolding Project.”

Keep in mind that the task should be age-appropriate for the child. A warning: DO NOT choose tying shoes! This is a much harder task than most people think and usually takes weeks to learn.

Procedure

Part 1: Describe the child in theoretical terms and analyze the task demands (to be completed by Week 6)

• Describe the child in general, developmental terms (not a physical description). To do this, use one or two developmental theories (from Weeks 2 & 3) to describe a child of this child’s age. Then use examples to show how the child fits the theory (and thus is a good choice for this task).
• Describe and analyze the task you will be doing with the child. Be sure to include consideration of the physical, cognitive, and/or social task demands (see Week 1).

Part 2: Obtain peer feedback about your selected child and task, and describe how the task is appropriate for the child (to be completed Weeks 7-8)

• Write up and post what you have prepared for Part 1 of this project and post it to the Scaffolding Paper Peer Feedback discussion forum. Provide feedback to at least one of your group member’s postings. Be constructive in your feedback and include specific ideas for improvement.
• Based on peer and instructor feedback, revise description of child and/or task if necessary.
• Next, provide an explanation of the match the child and the task you have chosen – in other words, how do you know that this task is appropriate for this child? similar or related tasks has the child done or is the child capable of? How do you know that this task is just above the child’s current level of ability?

Part 3: Perform the task with the child and write up your observations

(to be completed between Week 9 and Week 14)

• Interact with the child, helping him/her perform the task.
• Provide a detailed description(approximately one page in length) of what the child did during the task, that includes:
  1. The steps the child took to complete the task;
  2. A description of the child’s work on the task and ability to do the task (using developmental terms from the list below and/or your textbook/ online lessons); and
  3. The amount and kinds of assistance you provided to help the child.
• Finally, give examples of how to help children optimize development based on what you learned during this experience. In other words, how is scaffolding valuable for child development? What does this experience make you think about children’s (and humans’) ability to learn? How was the experience of scaffolding a child in an activity valuable for you? Take a broad view—what did you learn?

Developmental Terms to Include in Your Paper

Use as many of the following terms as are relevant to your scaffolding experience. I also encourage you to find any other developmental terms from the book or from the lessons that would be appropriate for your scaffolding experience. Because I cannot anticipate every task that you will choose, I cannot possibly provide you with an exhaustive list of terms to choose from. Impress me!

• Modeling/imitation
• Schema/assimilation/accommodation
• Fast mapping
• Fine motor skills/Gross motor skills
• Recognition/recall
• Positive reinforcement (praise, reward)
• Private speech
• Number knowledge/counting
• Knowledge Base
• Egocentrism
• Theory of Mind
• Metacognition
• Vocabulary
• Attention
• Memory (type?)
• Categorization/sorting

Format of Paper

The paper should be prepared as a Word Document and be about 4-5 pages long, typewritten, and double-spaced throughout (do not “double-double space” between paragraphs or sections). Make sure to use 12 point font and 1” margins.

Due Date

Submit your paper to by Midnight (EST) on WEDNESDAY of Week 14. Papers turned in after this time will be considered late. FIVE POINTS WILL BE DEDUCTED FOR EACH DAY THE PAPER IS LATE.

Grading

Make sure to include all of the following information in your paper, organized in the order shown below. Point values for grade determination also appear below: