The Importance Of Scafolding In Mathematics

1. Introduction

South Africa is country with eleven official languages. The majority of learners will have their primary through tertiary schooling in an English of Afrikaans medium institution. Most of these learners are not English mother tongue speakers and this can be a huge barrier for effective teaching to take place. Walton (2013: 131) states that different learners will require different scaffolding, depending on their current readiness to learn and all learners do need scaffolding to support them in moving from their current skill to a more difficult level. In this paper I will discuss how scaffolding can be used to help the teacher approach this problem and different strategies a mathematics teacher can use.

2. Context

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Used at the end of a topic, it allows them to express the mathematical language and explain the math concepts that they have been learning.

Create a grid with up to nine boxes. In each box, write a simple math problem that is based on the mathematical topic the group is studying. Allocate the first student a cell reference (for example, A2). The student works out the answer and then chooses someone from the group to go next, allocating a new cell reference to that student.

This strategy gives students opportunities to use mathematical language in a supported and scaffolded way to describe their reasoning.

• Clines: Clines are gradients used for teaching gradations of meaning. Words are spaced along the gradient, for example, words to describe temperature, such as tepid, hot, boiling, cool, cold, warm, chilly, and freezing. After modelling the task, give these words to groups of students to place on the cline. The discussion that comes with this task is as important as the task