Cognitive Apprenticeship in Educationalpractice: Research on Scaffolding,modeling, Mentoring, and Coachingas Instructional Strategies

Apprenticeship is an inherently social learning method with a long history of helping novices become experts in fields as diverse as midwifery, construction, and law. At the center of apprenticeship is the concept of more experienced people assisting less experienced ones, providing structure and examples to support the attainment of goals. Traditionally apprenticeship has been associated with learning in the context of becoming skilled in a trade or craft—a task that typically requires both the acquisition of knowledge, concepts, and perhaps psychomotor skills and the development of the ability to apply the knowledge and skills in a context-appropriate manner—and far predates formal schooling as it is known today. In many nonindustrialized nations apprenticeship remains the predominant method of teaching and learning. However, the overall concept of learning from experts through social interactions is not one that should be relegated to vocational and trade-based training while K–12 and higher educational institutions seek to prepare students for operating in an information-based society. Apprenticeship as a method of teaching and learning is just as relevant within the cognitive and metacognitive domain as it is in the psychomotor domain. In the last 20 years, the recognition and popularity of facilitating learning of all types through social methods have grown tremendously. Educators and educational researchers have looked to informal learning settings, where such methods have been in continuous use, as a basis for creating more formal instructional methods and activities that take advantage of these social constructivist methods. Cognitive apprenticeship— essentially, the use of an apprentice model to support learning in the cognitive domain—is one such method that has gained respect and popularity throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s. Scaffolding, modeling, mentoring, and coaching are all methods of teaching and learning that draw on social constructivist learning theory. As such, they promote learning that occurs through social interactions involving negotiation of content, understanding, and learner needs, and all three generally are considered forms of cognitive apprenticeship (although certainly they are not the only methods). This chapter first explores prevailing definitions and underlying theories of these teaching and learning strategies and then reviews the state of research in these area.