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the students enough information that they can succeed in using the strategy on their own. The teacher is
trying to get the student to do as much of the cognitive work as possible. Effective teachers try to give just
enough help to enable the students to do the rest of the work on their own (Azevedo, Cromley, Winters,
Moos, & Greene, 2005; D. Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976).
The transcript below presents an example of a teacher deploying hints effectively. An eleventh grader
is trying to evaluate the credibility of the sources. In this case, the student is evaluating the credibility of the
author of a historical document related to the building of the Panama Canal.
Transcript Analysis
Eva: Well, I think it’s a pretty credible
source. The guy who wrote the
document was there at the time.
Teacher: Can you say anything more about
why it’s a good source?
Eva: Well, the author was in Panama
at the time that the arrangements
were being made, so he should
know.
Teacher: What else is important in judging
credibility, in addition to whether
the person was actually there?
Eva: I’m not really sure....
Teacher: How about whether the author
has biases?
Eva: Oh....well, he was an
representative of the U.S.....
Teacher: And?
Eva: He might be biased in favor of
the U.S., since this is an official
document, and he might have to
take an official position, even if
he really doesn’t think so.
Eva has only considered one factor affecting the
credibility of sources—whether the source was an actual
eyewitness or not.
The teacher gives a very general hint—encouraging
the student very generally to try to think of more factors
that affect source credibility.
Eva has not yet considered any other aspect of
credibility beyond whether the source was an eyewitness.The teacher gives a more specific hint to encourage
Eva to try to think of other factors that affect credibility.Because Eva has been unable to think of any other
factors affecting credibility, the teacher now gives a more
specific hint. But Eva still has to take this idea and apply
it herself.
The teacher returns to giving a very general hint to
see if Evan can do the rest of the work on her own.
Now that Eva has started thinking about the idea of
bias, she is able to correctly reason that this source might
be biased.In this example, the teacher first gives a very general hint, and then a more specific hint, and finally a very
specific hint to consider biases. The teacher tries to avoid giving any more help than is necessary.
It is important that when teachers given hints, they give no more information than students need to
proceed on their own (Azevedo, Cromley, & Seibert, 2004; Azevedo et al., 2005; Davis, 2003). Scaffolds
should provide the least possible amount of support. Teachers want students to do as much of the cognitive
work as they can on their own, so that they can learn how to carry out the strategy (Chi, Siler, Jeong,
Yamauchi, & Hausmann, 2001).