Flower Darby and Small Teaching

Flower's Keynote:

If you weren't able to attend Flower's Keynote, take some time to watch the whole thing. If you are short on time (who isn't?), Flower's talk discusses scaffolding at the 33 minute mark. 

Article

Flower also addressed this topic over the summer in her series in the Chronicle of Higher Education. An article I'd like you to read is beyond a paywall from The Chronicle of Higher Education. So first you have to log in here:
Open Athens - Access. Links to an external site.Then you can read How to Be a Better Online Teacher. Links to an external site.

In her article, tip #7 addresses scaffolding. She goes on to say:

When you teach in person, you do a lot of modeling that you may not even be aware you’re doing. For example, when you demonstrate how to solve an equation, you’re explaining your thinking process. When you share examples and analogies, you’re showing how you connect concepts for deeper understanding. When you ask critical questions, you’re modeling how thinkers in your discipline make sense of theories and approaches.

Look for ways to break down complex tasks so that students make timely progress and receive feedback while there is still time to adjust their approach.

That kind of modeling and “scaffolding” doesn’t happen quite as naturally in online classes, where real-time interactions are limited. To help students succeed, you must be creative. Scrutinize your assessments, both large and small. Have your students had the opportunity to build — step by step, as they would in an in-person classroom — the knowledge and skills they will need do well on those assessments?

 

This rings true for a lot of things about teaching online. You have to be very intentional about it. Fortunately if we are embracing the Small Teaching approach, we can build in supports for just one or two of our assessments this quarter. Rather than a whole sale change of our assessment strategy, let's start small. Next page will offer some examples on how to do that and the page after is an activity designed to get you thinking about how you can scaffold an activity or assignment. 

Resources:

Darby, F. (2020, July 27). How to Be a Better Online Teacher. Retrieved October 01, 2020, from https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-to-be-a-better-online-teacher