The current paper examines the instructional implications of Vygotsky's (1978) seminal notion of Zone of Proximal Development, originally developed to account for the learning potential of children, and investigates ZPD applications to the concept of teacher professional development. Specific attempt has been made to see how a number of assets at the teacher's disposal namely diary writing, pee...

Scaffolding students in a collaborative networked learning environment requires different instructional methods than in a traditional home or classroom setting. The goal of this research is to understand computer-mediated collaboration in an instructional setting in order to create an effective computer-mediated collaboration tool. We identify ways to support collaboration by examining the inte...

This paper explores the role of instructional scaffolding in the development of undergraduate students' understanding of mathematical proof during a one-year discrete mathematics course. We describe here the framework adapted for the analysis of wholeclass discussion and examine how the teacher scaffolded students' thinking. Results suggest that students who engage in whole-class discussions th...

In our research, we seek to understand how we can effectively help learners to interpret and apply expert cases through software-realized scaffolding designed to augment the teachers’ modeling and coaching in a cognitive apprenticeship. We also seek to understand if exposure to the software’s detailed scaffolding will result in better performance and learning of targeted skills, and if so, what...

Supporting early writing skills in pre-kindergarten lays an important foundation for later achievement as well reading achievement. Specifically, encouraging children to write affords teachers the opportunity provide scaffolds improve spelling development. Teachers, however, tend more support than necessary guide children's spelling, which may stifle opportunities engage thinking that helps the...

Scaffolding and shadowing techniques have been shown to improve language learners’ reading comprehension. However, little attention has been paid to the comparative effectiveness of these techniques. This study investigated the effect of three selected scaffolding techniques (peer scaffolding, distributed scaffolding, and reciprocal scaffolding) versus three types of shadowing (complete shadowi...

How do educators and instructional designers assess the effectiveness of the learning environments they design? One important means of ensuring the effectiveness of instruction in distance and face-to-face settings is through provision of learner support. Increasingly, as learners utilize the World Wide Web for collaborative learning, support systems contribute to the processes of learning and ...

teaching and learning a second language, especially in postgraduate courses requires teachers to use appropriate teaching approaches and strategies since they can facilitate language learning considerably. the present research aims to study the relationship between instructional scaffolding and language learning among a selected group of persian learners in persian language centre in qazvin, ir...