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Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

After a bit of generic commentary in the first half (eg., "teaching is a radical act," and "the bureaucracies of schooling attempt to flatten our differences") the gist of the article "against scaffolding" comes to the fore in the second. "Too much of what we do breaks learning down into neat chunks, discrete linear steps, carefully 'scaffolded' to control for anxiety and distraction— without being responsive to the specific contexts, backgrounds, and experiences of students... too much of this framework is built in advance, during the design phase of a course, before teachers have even met the students." I've always thought of scaffolding as a toolbox, not a design element. So I'm sympathetic with the argument in this post.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
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Last Updated: Nov 03, 2024 3:09 p.m.

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