Proceedings of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education · Volume 1
Alexander Jonas Viktor Selling, Guri A. Nortvedt
University of Oslo
⬇ Download PDFThis paper reports from a study investigating collaborative problem solving in upper secondary mathematics classrooms following the principles of the Thinking class-rooms approach, focusing on teacher scaffolding strategies. In the observed lessons, students worked in groups of three attempting to solve problems involving solids of revolution and trigonometry. Overall, conceptual scaffolding was the most often observed scaffold. In addition, procedural, metacognitive, participatory, and epistemic scaffolding was observed. The most common scaffolding practice was questioning. Throughout the lesson the teacher managed to maintain the complexity of the task by withdrawing scaffolding at an early stage, thereby transferring responsibility to the students and allowing them to struggle with the problem.
ScaffoldingProblem solvingThinking classroomsVideo observationCollaborative problem solving