Research School Network: Three frameworks for independence We share three simple verbal scaffolds to support pupil independence

Mark Miller is Director of Bradford Research School

As we move our pupils towards greater independence, we must find ways to reduce the input from the teacher. This gradual release of responsibility requires approaches that provide some support where necessary, while also allowing the pupil do most of the thinking – or at least more than the teacher.

One way we can do this is through some simple verbal scaffolds. Here are 3 examples of frameworks that might be useful.

Framework 1: Scaffolding Framework for Teaching Assistant-Pupil Interactions

This framework is in the Making Best Use of Teaching Assistants guidance report, but is useful for everyone working with pupils. It is adapted from the work of Bosanquet, Radford, and Webster (2016), and was originally designed to address some of the pitfalls that inhibit independent learning:

• Prioritising task completion
• Not allowing pupils enough thinking and response time
• ‘Stereo-teaching’ (repeating verbatim what the teacher says)
• High use of closed questions
• Over-prompting and spoon-feeding

If a pupil is stuck on a spelling, our goal is for them to ​‘self-scaffold’, and get themselves unstuck. Correcting may also be an appropriate response in certain contexts, but a prompt such as ​‘which other words have that sound?’ can promote a little more thinking. It’s not a hierarchy, or a set of steps that must be worked through, but does help teachers to consider what might be the right way to support a student, while still allow them to be more independent.

Framework 2: Supporting Pupil Independence Through Questioning Tool

This tool is designed to support teachers by providing questions that encourage pupils to think metacognitively about their learning. They help teachers to help pupils to consider how to plan, monitor and evaluate their learning. As the EEF put it in the Metacognition and Slef-regulated Learning guidance report, ​“It is about planning how to undertake a task, working on it while monitoring the strategy to check progress, then evaluating the overall success.

Framework 3: Metacognitive Questioning

Mevarech and Fridkin (2006) outline the steps of the IMPROVE model, a gradual release of responsibility sequence in mathematics:

Introducing the new concepts,
Metacognitive questioning,
Practicing,
Reviewing,
Obtaining mastery,
Verification, and
Enrichment and remedial. 

They highlight four types of question for the M stage:
Comprehension questions orient students to articulate the main ideas in the problem (e.g., What is the problem all about?).
Connection questions lead students to construct bridges between the given problem and problems solved in the past (e.g., What are the similarities and differences between the given problem and problems you have solved in the past, and why?).
Strategic questions refer to strategies appropriate for solving the problem (e.g., What strategies are appropriate for solving the problem, and why?).
Finally, reflection questions guide students to look backward either during the solution process (e.g., Why am I stuck? What am I doing here?), or at the end (e.g., Does the solution make sense? Can I solve it differently?).

The study looks at mathematics, but we can easily apply to other contexts. For a pupil struggling to make sense of a poem:
Comprehension questions: What are the main ideas in this poem? Are there any words that stand out as being important? Where in the poem do you think the main message is conveyed?
Connection questions: How is this poem like others you have studied? How is it different? What strategies helped you understand that poem?
Strategic questions: Where is the volta? How does the title help us understand the meaning of the poem? Any lines that stand out for emphasis?
Reflection questions: Which parts of the poem have you struggled with? What might you have done differently? How successful were your strategies in unpicking it? Which study resources were helpful? What else do you need to study to understand this topic/​poem/​theme/​context further?

All of these frameworks are a useful starting point, and would benefit from application to specific subject contexts, but we think they are a very useful starting point.

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Mevarech, Z.R., & Fridkin, S. (2006). The effects of IMPROVE on mathematical knowledge, mathematical reasoning and meta-cognition. Metacognition and Learning, 1, 85 – 97.

Bosanquet, P., Radford, J. and Webster, R. (2016) The teaching assistant’s
guide to effective interaction: How to maximise your practice, published by Routledge.