Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges: Role of Scaffolding as an Instructional Support during Emergencies

The occurrence of natural and human-made catastrophes had hindered the delivery of quality education for the learners. In times like that, the role of scaffolding or instructional support resonates with the aim of continuous learning despite emergencies.

Scaffolding is a term associated with the works of Wood, Bruner, and Ross (1976). It is instructional support provided by the teacher, tutor, parent, or any supervising professional, which is temporary, to assist learners in accomplishing their tasks and solving problems independently. It is an assistive learning technique proven to promote independency among learners, making them invest in their own pace of learning to explore, investigate, and formulate new information based on actual involvement in the process.

Scaffolding, as it is used in construction, provides support, reinforcement, and foundation for learning. In times of emergencies, scaffolding becomes an integral tool to reinforce learning through the aid of an older person or professional at the comfort of students’ homes. It is essential to note further that in providing scaffold in learning, the learners are profile and assess thoroughly to provide a responsive approach in education. More so, the person or professional who will assist the learners should be trained to respond effectively to the learners’ varying needs and difficulties.

Special consideration with the use of scaffolding is the appropriate learning materials or activities to be used. Such should be diverse and adaptive to the learners’ needs, the objectives of the lesson, and reinforcement of essential competencies that they must achieve and perform in real-life situations.

Another thing to consider is the use of appropriate pedagogy. The approaches, strategies, techniques, and modalities that the teacher used must be adaptive, responsive, culture-based, readiness-based, and meaningful for the learners; otherwise, they will not be motivated to become creative and independent thinkers.

Just like in construction, the scaffolding must be sturdy enough to provide support and sustain learning. In that sense, educators and other stakeholder must work hand-in-hand, especially during emergencies, to continuously provide quality education for the learners. All the hindrances or barriers in the delivery of instruction must be addressed first before providing instructional support driven by the desire of stakeholders to lay a good foundation of education among learners, especially those deprived of it in times of emergency.