Factsheet - Scaffold learning
Scaffolding supports learners as they move from guided instruction to independent, higher-order thinking.
Scaffolding learning is the intentional use of temporary, structured supports that guide students through new or complex concepts and skills. These supports help learners build understanding and confidence, gradually being removed as competence grows. Effective scaffolding enables students to transition from foundational knowledge to independent, critical, and problem-solving thinking (Stanier, 2015). The following diagram illustrates the structured process of scaffolding, highlighting how educators gather evidence of understanding, adjust levels of support in response, and gradually withdraw guidance as learner confidence develops.
Gather evidence of learning |
Provide targeted scaffolds |
Gradually reduce support |
|---|---|---|
Formative assessment provides an ongoing process to collect evidence about your students' learning. This can be used to determine what scaffolds to put in place. | Based on results from formative assessment, utilise scaffolds to support learning. Differentiate your approach for different students and their knowledge levels. | As students develop their knowledge and skills, you can gradually reduce scaffolds. |
Scaffolding is important to inclusive teaching because it gives every student a supported and manageable pathway into new or challenging learning, reducing overwhelm and making success more attainable.
Implementing this strategy
Getting ready
Break down the task or concept into parts
Identify all the key components of the concept and task. Start with the foundational knowledge or skills, which is the essential understanding and skills that underpin further learning in a discipline, then outline the progressive steps students will take throughout the class, module, or unit.
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For example, we often assume that students understand the conventions, structures, styles, and expectations around evidence required for academic writing. However, developing an assessment task involves multiple steps such as:
- understanding and unpacking the prompt
- developing ideas and crafting a thesis statement
- planning and structuring the essay
- integrating and analysing evidence
- revising, editing, and finalising the submission.
Breaking tasks into clear, manageable steps reduces cognitive load and supports students with diverse learning needs. This includes students who are new to the subject, learning in a second language, or who benefit from explicit structure. It helps all students understand expectations and build confidence as they progress.
Consider where scaffolding may be needed
Plan how you will guide your students by identifying the key learning outcomes and anticipating where challenges or cognitive overload may occur.This might include identifying where students might encounter difficulty, such as unfamiliar terminology, complex instructions, or multi-step complex reasoning.
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When you are considering where scaffolding may be needed, you can be use following questions:
- What parts of this task are likely to be challenging?
- What explicit support could help students manage those challenges?
- How will those supports be removed over time to promote independence?
By embedding scaffolds at predictable challenge points, such as vocabulary supports, worked examples, visual representations, or structured prompts, you make complex content accessible without lowering expectations. The goal is not to simplify the learning, but to remove unnecessary barriers so all students can engage with the core disciplinary thinking.
Consider what scaffolds you will plan for
Select targeted supports that maintain the integrity of the learning outcomes whilst reducing unnecessary cognitive load. Choosing targeted support scaffolding is purposeful and aligned to the precise requirements and demands of the task. Instead of adding generic help (like giving everyone extra time or more instructions), you identify exactly what the task requires and where students might struggle.
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Here are some of the most evidence informed strategies explained further in our guide on scaffold supports:
- Formative assessment - Formative assessment is the process of checking students’ understanding during learning so you can adjust teaching and help them improve before final evaluation. It’s not about grades, it is about feedback and guidance.
- Modelling - You explicitly show learners how to do something before asking them to do it themselves. You think out loud, demonstrate the steps, and make your decision-making visible so they can see not just what to do, but how and why you are doing it.
- Chunking - You break complex information or tasks into smaller, manageable parts so learners can process and remember them more effectively.
Considering what scaffolds to plan for anticipates variation in prior knowledge, language proficiency, processing speed, and/or confidence before difficulties arise. By identifying potential barriers in advance and embedding targeted supports,this proactive planning promotes equitable access to complex content by ensuring that challenge remains in the learning and adjustments can be made.
Differentiate your supports
Provide layered scaffolds that students can opt in to. Differentiation is the broader approach of adjusting how students access content, process learning, or demonstrate understanding. Differentiation in large cohorts doesn’t mean 200 individual lesson plans.It means designing flexible structures that allow variation without overwhelming you.The key mindset shift: differentiation at scale is about designing smart systems, not increasing your workload exponentially. You’re building adjustable scaffolds into the structure itself allows you to gradually release responsibility ensuring students take on greater independence when evidence shows they are ready.
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When planning, consider what options allow you to differentiate support, including:
Use staged submissions
Break assessment into components (thesis, paragraph plan, draft). Staged submissions specifically refers to breaking a larger assessment into smaller, sequenced components (e.g., topic proposal → thesis → paragraph plan → draft → final submission), with feedback at each stage. Rather than requiring students to complete a complex assignment in one sitting, the task is intentionally scaffolded over time.
Build in limited choice
Building in limited choice involves offering structured options within a task such as a small range of topics, case studies, datasets, or presentation formats while keeping core learning outcomes and assessment criteria consistent. The options are purposeful to maintain academic standards and avoid increasing marking load. By varying complexity within these choices, educators create structured entry points that scaffold learning and align with different levels of readiness. As a strategy of differentiation, limited choice increases engagement by connecting learning to students’ interests or strengths while preserving academic rigour.
Use structured peer review
Having students evaluate each other’s work using a clear rubric, checklist, or targeted prompts aligned to assessment criteria provides a structured approach to peer feedback. This ensures comments are anchored to rubrics and learning outcomes rather than informal opinion. By breaking the evaluative process into manageable steps, students deepen their understanding of learning outcomes through applying criteria to authentic examples and receiving multiple perspectives on their own work. As a differentiated strategy, it supports varied levels of confidence and skill by providing structured guidance for both giving and interpreting feedback.
Provide annotated exemplars
Provide students with access to samples at different levels, accompanied with annotations that explain how it meets or does not meet specific assessment criteria, so they can clarify expectations. This approach scaffolds learning by making success criteria clear and reducing ambiguity. Analysing varied exemplars helps students identify features they can replicate, refine, or avoid in their own work. As a differentiated strategy, it supports learners across ability levels by offering clear reference points for each level, allowing students to see how they can progress.
Target feedback patterns, not individuals
Addressing common strengths and challenges identified during marking through a short video, annotated summary, or whole-class debrief establishes a cohort-wide feedback strategy. Rather than responding only to individual submissions, the educator synthesises patterns in performance and explicitly explains recurring issues, modelling how they can be improved. By highlighting patterns and demonstrating corrections, this strategy scaffolds learning through clarification of expectations and explicit guidance on how to strengthen future work. Students can compare the feedback themes to their own responses and identify relevant adjustments. As a differentiated approach, it supports the whole cohort equitably by addressing shared needs while allowing individuals to apply the insights according to their specific gaps.
Differentiating your supports demonstrates inclusive teaching because it recognises that students do not begin from the same place. It reduces unnecessary barriers while maintaining consistent academic standards. It makes expectations transparent and accessible rather than assumed. This ensures all students have a fair opportunity to demonstrate disciplinary knowledge.
With students
Check foundational knowledge or skills
Before introducing new content, it is essential to check that students have the necessary foundational knowledge or skills. It includes the key processes, concepts, principles, and information students must secure first in order to engage successfully with more complex concepts and applications.
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To determine the level of understanding in a class, use the following steps:
Step 1 - Elicit evidence of understanding
Use formative assessment to surface what students currently know.
Step 2 - Analyse responses for gaps and misconceptions
Look at their responses to ascertain their strengths and gaps in knowledge if evident.
Step 3 - Respond and adjust teaching
Reteach key elements, provide additional modelling or guided practice, or adjust the level of task complexity before progressing to new content.
The process of checking foundational knowledge or skills supports diverse learners because it prevents teachers from assuming readiness and instead bases teaching on actual evidence of understanding. By identifying what students already know or can do and where gaps may exist educators can adjust pacing, provide targeted scaffolding, or extend learning where appropriate. This approach benefits students who may need more time, clearer explanations, or reinforcement of key vocabulary, as well as those who are ready for greater challenge.
Apply the scaffolds and adjust teaching
Based on the outcomes of the formative assessment, adjust your activities to revisit key concepts or provide additional guidance before advancing or progressing to higher-order, more complex thinking and application.
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Effective teaching is responsive. Here are clear, practical steps for adjusting your teaching after checking foundational knowledge:
Step 1 - Review the evidence immediately
Scan responses for patterns. Where are the misunderstandings? What is secure? Who is confident and who is unsure?
Step 2 - Decide to reinforce or extend
Depending on the results of the formative assessment, you may consider the following:
- If gaps are widespread, pause and reteach the key concept using clearer modelling, examples, or guided practice.
- If understanding is mostly secure (~80%), move forward but build in a short consolidation task.
- If many students demonstrate mastery, increase complexity and shift to higher-order application.
Step 3 - Pivot your plan
This is critical: do not be wedded to your lesson plan. The plan is a guide, not a script. If students are not ready, advancing will compound confusion. If they are ready, holding them back wastes momentum. Adjust activities, timing, grouping, or task difficulty in response to what the evidence shows.
Step 4 - Provide targeted support
Offer small-group clarification, additional worked examples, scaffolds, or extension tasks depending on need.
Step 5 - Recheck understanding
After adjusting, quickly reassess to ensure the gap has closed before progressing.
Adjusting teaching in response to formative evidence supports diverse learners by aligning instruction with demonstrated understanding rather than planned pacing. When educators analyse patterns in student responses and adapt accordingly, they reduce the risk of compounding misconceptions and ensure that foundational knowledge is secure before progressing.It allows educators to manage cognitive demand, vary levels of scaffolding, and provide appropriate challenge, thereby creating more equitable access to complex disciplinary knowledge.
Make a range of scaffolds visible
Offer a range of scaffolded supports from high guidance to minimal prompts. Encourage students to transition between these supports based on their level of confidence and competence.
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To ensure all students can access the learning while maintaining appropriate challenge, educators can structure scaffolded support in the following way:
- Apply a continuum of supports- Present the tasks with varying levels of guidance,for example, fully worked examples, partially completed models with prompts, guiding questions, and independent tasks with minimal cues.
- Make the levels explicit - Clearly explain the purpose of each support level and communicate that movement between them is expected. Frame this as responsive learning, the message is that support levels are flexible and strategic. Students can move between them as their understanding develops.
- Enable flexible transition - Encourage students to move toward less support as confidence and competence increase, or to temporarily access stronger scaffolds when needed. Monitor progress and guide transitions to ensure challenge remains appropriate.
Providing a structured continuum of scaffolded support enables diverse learners to engage with the same core content at an appropriate level of guidance. Students who require explicit modelling or structured prompts can access high-support options, while those ready for greater autonomy can work with reduced scaffolding and increased complexity. Because movement between levels is flexible, learners are not confined to fixed groupings and can adjust support in response to task demands. This maintains high expectations by ensuring all students work toward shared disciplinary goals with differentiated pathways.
Model and gradually release responsibility
Explicitly demonstrate the skill or concept by deliberately walking through the process step by step, making your thinking visible and clarifying why decisions are made so students can see what successful performance looks like. Guide students through supported practice, using prompts, questioning, and feedback as they attempt the task. Gradually shift responsibility to students as their confidence and competence grow, moving from collaborative application to independent performance while maintaining clear expectations.
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Demonstrate the full process or skill using worked or completed examples. One technique to achieve this is the “I do it, we do, you do” sequence, discussed below, which involves gradually removing scaffolds as students gain independence and mastery.
When educators clearly show how to think and act within a task, students who are developing language proficiency, building background knowledge, or requiring additional processing time have a concrete reference point before attempting the work themselves. The gradual shift to independence allows learners to build confidence at an appropriate pace.
Provide opportunities for feedback
Build regular opportunities for feedback into the learning process by observing student work, asking probing questions, and providing timely, specific information about how their current performance aligns with the learning goal. Feedback is information that helps learners understand what they are doing well, where gaps or misconceptions exist, and what concrete steps they can take to improve. When delivered clearly and acted upon, feedback guides progress between scaffolds rather than simply evaluating performance.
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Here are practical ways to give feedback that can move learning forward:
- During class discussion - “Your explanation identifies the main principle correctly. Now extend it by explaining why it applies in this scenario.”
- On written work - Instead of writing “unclear,” write: “Clarify this sentence by defining the key term and linking it directly to your argument.”
- In problem-solving tasks - “Your method is correct, but you skipped a step in showing your working. Include the substitution so your reasoning is explicit.”
- Using whole-class feedback - “Many of you calculated the force correctly but forgot to state the units. Let’s review why units matter in engineering calculations.”
- Through peer feedback prompts - “Identify one strength in your partner’s response and one place where they could add evidence or explanation.”
- Consistency with feedback- Use consistent feedback systems, language and processes so students can recognise recurring patterns, understand expectations, and act on areas for improvement over time.
Feedback allows students to understand their progress and actively choose what scaffolds they feel they need. Students need to develop evaluative judgement, the capacity to assess the strengths and areas for improvement in their own work and that of others . Well-designed feedback processes can scaffold this capability, supporting its development over time (Gladovic et al., 2025).
By making strengths and gaps visible, it reduces uncertainty and helps learners action and choose their own next steps. Clear, specific feedback is particularly valuable for students who may require additional structure, language clarification, or reassurance, as it replaces guesswork with direction.
Spotlight on ‘I do, we do, you do’
The Gradual Release Of Responsibility Framework (Wagner, 2025), commonly referred to as the “I do, we do, you do” model, is an active teaching approach in which responsibility for learning shifts progressively from the instructor to students.
Learning is most effective when instruction is targeted within a learner’s zone of proximal development, a concept that underpins the use of scaffolding to provide temporary, responsive support (Vygotsky 1978). “I do, we do, you do” begins in the closest zone to the educator with direct modelling and explanation of the skill or task. Moving out to the furthest zone where students practice the skill or task independently.
Inclusive principles
Scaffolding learning at Monash
Dr Jess Co utilised scaffolding in their teaching to assist students develop coping skills that can help them transition from school to university successfully. This approach, as discussed in their Be Inspired on Teach HQ, involved a combination of interventions and resulted in positive feedback from students and improved academic performance.
