Show me how to do it and leave me to it: reflections on scaffolding and apprentice style learning

Scaffolding is helping someone because they cannot do the task by themselves. But is this an assumption? Having strong instrinsic motivation, time and the necessary disposition, everyone can learn a skill. Being scaffolded teaches reliance among other things. If you scaffold someone to achieve an outcome, are you not devoiding them of the opportunity to strain themselves and acquire new skills? To be agentic, to learn by discovery? Maybe you will save them time and effort but is it beneficial in the long run? Is it not deskilling, spoiling the learner and making them expect support every time they start a new task. Gradual withdrawal of scaffolding (fading the scaffolding - see Pea, 2004) might be a good way to cultivate independence similar to how you teach a toddler to walk. You help them in the beginning and take them by the hand until they are stable enough to walk by themselves. 

Another way scaffolding can be deficitizing the learner (just came up with that word) is that it can be directive to an extent as in guiding the learner in a particular path to complete the outcome. Would they not do it diffrently if left to their own devices?

Now let us look at a practical exmple from experience. Around the age of 8 my father decided to teach me how to swim properly dipping my head into the water and all. So he demonstrated to me and I was following. At one point I got confused with the breathing rhythm and ended up swallowing salty sea water. I got agitated and upset and refused to be taught anymore. I did not give up the idea of learning to swim, though. I taught myself by observing others who had mastered the skill and whose style I liked. I watched them closely and imitated. Then I started observing myself and perfecting my technique. I was guided by two variables - how fast I was going and how tired I got. I was aiming to go faster but get less tired as I considered this to be a sign of efficiency and doing the task correctly. To achieve this, I was changing movements, breathng technique and by trial and error gradually achieved what I wanted. This could not have been taught by another as I was relying on my own body to do it. This was done through determination, motivation, imitation of a model and exploration/experimentation. No scaffolding.

If we are to apply this to a more specific educational context, we can consider the initial level of the learner. If they are a beginner, they would need more guidance (scaffolding). If advanced, they might be able to look at a model, imitate, modify and experiment to achieve the desired effect (given they have enough of intrinsic motivaton to do that!). In education, scaffolding is mostly discussed in second laguage acquisition, but I feel in EAP and ESP contexts, the apprentice model is more suited. Placed in an EAP context this might mean playing with authenticity of task and content too - a more authentic task coupled with general lower level content or authentic original content accompanied by a series of scaffolding tasks.

I am finding myself more and more attracted to a hands-on, apprentice-like emulation as an effective way of learning. Every great performer has learned from someone before and by polishing their skill they have developed their own style. Take Renaissance artists - a lot of masters had  workshops where they taught their skill to the apprentices. True, it took years to perfect the skill and that is one of the main drawbacks of that method in this modern age of urgency where achievements and outcomes are valued more than skill and process.

To go back to the EAP context again - I find the apprentice model partcularly suited to teach the stages of the research process through demonstration, and then test acquisition of the skills by watching the student demonstrate back, which I have discussed here.

Scaffolding is a way to help the learner but there might be hidden undesirable side effects. It is a way to impose our help on the learner and is directive in the sense that it is the teacher who plans and decides on the form and amount of scaffolding. Apprentice-like learning, on the other hand, is a more agential way for the learner to achieve the desired otcome and requires (or indeed developes) a different set of skills and disposition.

Mirena Nalbantova

31/03/26

Reference:

Pea, R. D. (2004). The Social and Technological Dimensions of Scaffolding and Related Theoretical Concepts for Learning, Education, and Human Activity, Journal of the Learning Sciences, 13(3), 423-451.