So why in fact did I choose this topic to be the basis of my inquiry question? What part of it stood out and why did I have the urge to dive in deeper within the subject? Well, to simply answer your question, this is intact a very common question! It seems today that one cannot go into a single classroom and not have a diversity of developmental levels among the students. I can personally remember on the very first day we were allowed to go and visit each opt our potential placement schools, stepping into the first classroom that I visited and beginning to observe. At the beginning of the class when the teacher began to lecture everything seemed to be normal with your typical students who were listening, talking, drawing and what have you. However, once the sponsor teacher suggested that I go ahead and
try helping some of them with the assigned math homework, my perspectives began to change.
Each student that I visited was vastly different from the next in their level of understanding. For example, the first student that needed my help only needed a simple reminder before they were on their way flying through the rest of the question. The second student needed a bit more help in the sense that we both walked through the question step by step and eventually they got it. The third student however could not grasp a simple concept that was needed in order to successfully complete the question. No matter how I attempted to relate, explain, or describe the concept the students simply could not begin to understand. So as you can see, each of these separate students needed a different dosage of autonomy and scaffolding. In one example it didn’t take much before they were off on their own working through problems, the other needed a little bit of a boost before being able to take the reigns, and the last example need complete guidance from the start.
I hope that this shared experience has helped shed some light on the importance of my question. My hope is that as I go deeper into my research and personal experiences that I will be able to begin to apply my findings to my own approach to teaching. Furthermore, my ambitions are to find out when to recognize when the child needs the help of scaffolding as well as when they become able enough to develop their own self-efficacy and autonomy. By applying these new findings to my own practices I hope to better the learning of my students through proper developmental monitoring and guidance.
Photo retrieved from: http://capnsmarrowblog.blogspot.ca/2013/12/stemcell-boost-christmas-present-from.html