Scaffolding in Information Science

Scaffolding as a Meta-Cognitive Skill

keywords: scaffolding, educational psychology, cognitive/meta-cognitive skills, constructivist/constructivism, non-formal/informal learning.

It refers to the growing need in 'knowledge workers' to construct a knowledge 'scaffold' (like the structures used in construction) of existing knowledge to support their construction of new knowledge.

Scaffolding as a metaphor

• every scaffold is unique - there is no 'right answer'. Your knowledge scaffold has to be right for you and for the structure you are building
• scaffolds are transient - you create a knowledge scaffold for a particular purpose.
• however, scaffolds grow over time - they have an overall plan, but they are built in stages in response to how construction actually happens.

Scaffolding in MutualDiscovery

1. we start out by
   • writing learning objectives for you
   • identifying relevant background material for you
   • laying out the steps, etc.
   • although you fill in a lot of the scaffolding yourselves from the start, in the narration, reflective questions, and peer evaluation
2. as we move forward, you progressively take responsibility for the rest of the process, so that you can apply it to areas of interest outside of the course material.

Constructing a Scaffold

1. The overall plan we mentioned before is really helpful in building your scaffold. What does that overall plan translate to in learning?
   • To construct a plan, you need to develop an intuitive understanding of how the new information you are acquiring fits together to meet your learning objective. One thing that helps is to spend some time exploring the more advanced topics related to your learning objectives 'prematurely' at a very high level.