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However, there are no questions that address any particular cognitive strategies or
social strategies that you may want students to master. For instance, if you are planning
to be a history teacher working with evaluating evidence, you would probably want to
have questions that dealt with the cognitive strategies of evaluating evidence that you
want your students to master. You might want to replace some of these questions with
questions focusing more particularly on the strategies that you will want to teach.Fading scaffolding. As we’ve discussed throughout this section, the goal of scaffolding is to help
students complete a task successfully that they could not complete without assistance. But as students
become better able to carry out tasks on their own, they should reach a point where they do not need the
scaffolding any longer. Thus, teachers can gradually reduce or “fade” scaffolding as students gain greater
skill (A. Collins et al., 1989). Then, as students master one task, teachers can challenge them with a more
difficult task, for which scaffolding will be again needed for a period of time until students master that
more difficult task.
How scaffolding of complex tasks promotes core processes. When teachers use complex tasks
with collaborative groups, they may be concerned over whether the task will be too difficult. If students
flounder on tasks that are too difficult, their expectations of success and hence their motivation will
decrease. Through the use of the methods of scaffolding discussed in this section, teachers can increase
students’ expectations of success by giving them the cognitive tools needed to succeed at the task. Most
forms of scaffolding directly support the use of high-quality cognitive strategies and encourage uptake of
fellow group members’ ideas.
Cognitive roles encourage students to work well in groups and to respect each other. Roles such as
clean-up and set-up specialists further encourage students to share in the management of the classroom;
this is consistent with ideas about self-regulated classroom management that you learned about in Chapter
11.
Preparing Students for Group Work
There is much that teachers must do to prepare students for effective group work. These include
team-building activities, introducing students to norms for effective group work, and providing instruction
in social and cognitive strategies that students need when working in groups. These include:
Team-building exercises which focus on the core process of promoting mutual respect and caring
among students. Some activities are also designed to show students that collaborative solutions are usually
superior to individual solutions (see Cohen, 1994a).
Group norms are often posted in classrooms as reminders for students. We have discussed group
norms and how to promote them in Chapter 4 (Social Development). Teachers can work to foster group
norms that make collaborative learning more effective. For example, Figure 15.17 shows following posting
in a sixth grade class fosters constructive controversies (K. Smith et al., 1981). The norms are designed to
promote the kind of interactions that make constructive controversies effective in promoting learning. The
norms encourage students to consider multiple perspectives, to respect each other, and to engage in
balanced interactions. These are all core processes of effective groups.
Here is an example of a different set of norms. In a study of norms being promoted in a seventh-
grade class, researchers Noreen Webb and Farivar (1994) noted the following norms: (1) listen attentively,
(2) no put-downs, (3) 12-inch voices (meaning no yelling), and (4) equal participation by everyone. Like
the norms in Figure 15.17, these norms encourage balanced participation and respect for others. These
norms focus less on desired cognitive strategies than the norms in Figure 15.18. A norm related to the
cognitive strategy of explanation could be added to the list: (5) explain your ideas.