Supporting student thinking...

...without taking over.

Hello all. Welcome to the 179th edition of TEPS Weekly!

A student is solving “3/4th of 20”. They write “20 ÷ 4 = 5” and then stop. They look back at a solved example on the board, cross something out, try another step and pause again. It has been about a minute. You are standing nearby. What would you do?

Would you wait a little longer? Ask them to explain their thinking? Give a small hint? Or show them the next step?

At first, this seems like a simple decision about how much help to give. But there is one problem: we do not yet know why the student has stopped. There can be different reasons:

• They understand that dividing by 4 finds one quarter but are not sure what to do with the 3.

• They have copied the first step from the example without understanding why.

• They know what to do but are checking whether the same method applies to this problem.

From where the teacher is standing, all of these manifest in the same look: a student who is stuck. But each situation calls for a different response. This is why the first question to ask yourself is not really, “How should I help?” It is, “What is actually stopping this student from moving forward?”

That is where scaffolding begins. Effective scaffolding is not simply about giving students a hint, a worked example, a writing frame or step-by-step guidance. The support needs to respond to the particular difficulty the student is facing and change as that difficulty changes. Research on scaffolding describes this as contingent support: the teacher adjusts the amount and type of help according to what the student can currently do, and gradually reduces that help as the student becomes more able to continue independently.

So rather than thinking: student struggles → teacher helps, it may be more useful to think: Notice → Diagnose → Decide → Support → Check → Fade. 

Notice → Diagnose

A wrong answer can tell us that something has gone wrong, but it cannot tell us what has gone wrong.

Take two students solving “38 + 27”. 

• The first student writes “55”. The teacher asks, “Show me how you worked that out.” The student says, “8 plus 7 is 15, and 3 plus 2 is 5…” then stops. Suddenly they add, “Oh! I forgot the ten.” They correct the answer to “65”. 

• Another student answers “515”. Again, the teacher asks, “Show me how you worked that out.” This student says, “8 plus 7 is 15. Then 3 plus 2 is 5. So I wrote 15 and 5 together.”

Both answers are wrong, but the ‘what has gone wrong’ is very different. The first student understands the process and has made an error. A small prompt is enough. The second student's answer reveals a gap in their understanding of regrouping after carrying over. Asking them simply to “check again” may achieve very little because, according to their current understanding, their answer makes sense. They may need the teacher to return to tens and ones and make the regrouping visible.

The important information, then, did not come from seeing the incorrect answer. It came from hearing the thinking behind it. Simple prompts such as “Tell me what you did” or “How did you get there?” can serve the important purpose of helping the teacher diagnose the issue before deciding how to intervene.

Decide

Once we understand where the difficulty lies, there is another judgement to make: Does the student actually need us (the teacher) to step in yet?Imagine a Grade 7 Geography lesson. Students are choosing the best location for a new settlement using a map showing a river, a road, steep land, flat land and a flood-risk zone. One group initially chooses a site beside the river. Then one student notices the flood-risk marking and says, “We shouldn't build here. It floods.” Another replies, “But this other place is much further from the road.” A third begins by comparing another site: “This one is safer, but transport will be harder.”

The group is uncertain and has not reached an answer, but the teacher does not intervene. Why? Because the students are still using evidence, comparing options, challenging their first choice and changing their thinking. Their struggle is not preventing learning; in fact it is helping learning – it is producing the thinking the task was designed to develop.

Imagine another group chooses the site nearest the road and gives only one reason: “Roads are useful.” Even when asked to look again at the map, they continue discussing only the road. Several minutes later, their thinking has not moved. This time the teacher directs their attention to the flood-risk area and steep land: “Compare these two places. What could make each one difficult to live in?” The students now begin considering other evidence.

Both groups found the task difficult, but only one was still moving forward. This is an important distinction. We can think of the first group's difficulty as a productive struggle: the task is challenging, but the students are still making progress through their thinking. They are checking evidence, considering alternatives, noticing problems and revising their ideas. Struggle does not automatically mean that the teacher needs to take over. The key question is simply: Is this difficulty still helping the student think, or do they now need support?

This gives the teacher something more useful to notice than simply how long a student has been stuck. Is the student changing their approach? Are they checking an example or representation? Are they connecting ideas? Are they noticing that an answer does not make sense? Or are they repeating the same action, guessing without a reason or becoming more confused? The difference helps the teacher decide whether the student needs more time or more support.

Support

Let’s return to our student solving 3/4th of 20. The teacher now asks, “Talk me through what you've done so far.” The student explains, “I divided 20 by 4 because there are four equal parts, so one part is 5. I know I need three of those parts now, but I don’t understand what do what to do next.”

Now the teacher knows that the student understands the main idea. They do not need the whole concept re-taught. A prompt such as, “If one part is 5, how much would three parts be?” may be enough. The student writes 5 × 3 = 15 and continues.

If the student instead says, “I divided by 4 because 4 is the numerator, so I thought I had to divide by it,” the teacher now sees a different problem. The student is not just forgetting the next step; they are confused about what numerator and denominator mean. A hint such as “Now multiply by 3” might help them finish this question, but it would not correct the misunderstanding. The teacher needs to go back to what “3/4th of 20” represents and model the idea more clearly.

The support needs to match the diagnosis. And it changes according to what the student shows they can and cannot currently do.

But choosing the support is only part of the decision. The teacher also needs to know whether the support has worked or not.

Check → Fade

Giving support is not the end of the decision. The teacher still needs to see what happens next. If a prompt gets the student moving independently, step back. If they repeat exactly the same error, diagnose again. If the support has revealed a deeper gap, increase the support. What matters is not simply “I explained it” or “I gave them a scaffold”, but what the student can do independently.

When the support works consistently, it should eventually become less necessary. 

Imagine Grade 6 students learning to write analytical paragraphs. At first, the teacher gives them sentence starters to help structure their response. Once students begin using that structure confidently, the teacher shortens the prompts. Later, the prompts are removed completely and students write the paragraph independently.

If a student asks, “Aren't we getting sentence starters today?” The teacher replies, “Try without them first. You already know what your paragraph needs.”

The scaffold is being removed not because it failed, but because it worked. Its purpose was not to make students good at using a writing frame. Its purpose was to help them develop a way of organising their thinking that they could eventually use without it. Research on scaffolding calls this fading: as students become more capable, support is gradually withdrawn and responsibility shifts back towards the student.

Without this final step, useful support can become something students depend on. A student who receives a hint every time they are stuck may begin to wait for the hint and avoid the productive struggle part of learning. A student who always checks an answer with the teacher may stop checking their own reasoning. Scaffolding should therefore have a direction: towards the student being able to do more of the thinking without that particular support.

Coming back to the student who wrote “20 ÷ 4 = 5” and paused. Whether the teacher should wait, prompt or explain cannot be decided simply from the pause itself. The same visible behaviour can signal very different learning needs.

That is why the sequence matters: Notice → Diagnose → Decide → Support → Check → Fade

The goal is not to intervene as quickly as possible, nor to leave students struggling for as long as possible. It is to understand what is happening beneath the struggle, give the support that helps learning move forward, and recognise when the student is ready for us to step aside again.

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Edition: 5.34