In the past couple of weeks, we’ve seen two major accidents/disasters involving cranes collapsing …in Miami and New York City. What do cranes have to do with good instruction? Well, for me, these two incidents underscore the importance of putting a student’s learning experience on a good foundation, and then building it from the ground up!

In February at the ASTD TechKnowledge Conference in San Antonio, one of the speakers referenced “scaffolding” — a technique we can use to sequence training or instruction so that our lessons actually produce results!

Scaffolding refers to the process of building instruction in four different phases, each of which takes the learner closer to mastery:

1. On the ground level, we begin with I DO - YOU WATCH. Here the instructor demonstrates mastery of the skill to be learned.

2. Building on that, the instruction then moves into I DO - YOU HELP.

3. The next level up, the student takes a more active role: YOU DO - I HELP.

4. And finally, on the uppermost scaffold, we let the student demonstrate his or her mastery: YOU DO - I WATCH.

It’s an intriguing concept as we think through the courses we’re teaching!

How many times have I stayed at the ground level in my instruction and never taken the student higher, through the experience of testing their own mastery of the subject? Or how many times have I forced students to jump to the uppermost scaffold, without working from the ground up and first ensuring a good foundation?

Too many!