Scaffolding techniques: A teacher training for cooperative learning in Thailand

primary education

Abstract

In general, the benefits of using cooperative learning include academic achievement,

communication skills, problem-solving, social skills and student motivation. Yet cooperative

learning as a Western educational concept may be ineffective in a different learning system.

The study aims to investigate scaffolding techniques for cooperative learning in Thailand

primary education. The program was designed to foster Thai primary school teachers’

cooperative learning implementation that includes the basic tenets of cooperative learning

and socio-cognitive based learning. Two teachers were invited to participate in this

experimental teacher training program for one and a half weeks. Then the teachers

implemented a cooperative learning in their mathematics class for six weeks. The data from

teacher interview and classroom observation indicated that the both teachers are able to

utilise questions to scaffold their students’ engagement in cooperative learning. This initiative

study showed that difficulty or failure of implementing cooperative learning in Thailand

education may not be derived from cultural difference. The paper discussed the techniques

the participant teachers applied with proactive scaffolding, reactive scaffolding and

scaffolding questions that can be used to facilitate the implementation of cooperative learning

in Thai school.

Key words: Cooperative learning; scaffolding; scaffolding questions; proactive scaffolding;

reactive scaffolding; Thailand education;

Background

Numerous studies have shown the benefits of using cooperative learning in the classrooms

such as academic achievement, communication skills, problem-solving, social skills and

student motivation (Harvey, 2007; Nguyen, Elliott, Terlouw & Pilot, 2009; Slavin, 1995). In

particular, cooperative learning has been found to better promote students’ learning outcomes

and social relations (Cohen, 1994; Gillie, 2004; Johnson, Carson & Johnson, 1989:2002;

Slavin, 1995; Veenman, Kenter & Post, 2000). Cooperative learning also promotes a change

from teacher-centred to student-centred learning, allowing students to gain benefit from

teaching each other, sharing ownership of content and construction of new knowledge

(Hannon & Ratliffe, 2004). Successful cooperative teaching strategies requires that students

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must work together as a team. This includes helping, sharing, assisting, explaining and

encouraging each other. In doing so, Johnson, Carson and Johnson (1987) proposed that

student groups should be strategically seated in order to encourage “eye-to-eye, knee-to-

knee” interactions.

The concept of cooperative learning is new for the vast majority of Thai teachers.

Cooperative learning strategy as a Western educational concept may be ineffective in a

different learning system especially in Thai classroom culture (Messier, 2003; Phuong-Mai,

Terlouw & Pilot, 2009). Puacharearn and Fisher (2004) claimed that Thai traditional teaching

strategies are characterised by teacher-centred didactic lectures. In Thailand, students

generally do not gain benefits from teaching each other, sharing ownership of content and the

construction of new knowledge. The student participation in class activities is poor to the

extent that they rarely put their hands up to answer questions (Deveney, 2005) and students

lack the skills to work in group (Zakaria & Iksan, 2007).

One of the essential elements of cooperative learning that need to be considered is scaffolding

technique to the extent that teachers’ scaffolding affects the way they interactive with their

students (Gillies & Boyle, 2005). To succeed in implementing cooperative learning in

classroom and to enable Thai students to gain more academic and social achievement, teacher

knowledge of scaffolding has been suggested as a possible solution (Krongthong, 2003;

Puacharearn & Fisher, 2004). Scaffolding enables teachers to identify and plan the topics for

instruction by looking at students’ responses to scaffolding (Gillies, 2004; McCosker &

Diezmann, 2009). Valkenburg (2010) argued that teachers can use it to enhance their ability

to determine the level of independence of the student with regard to a specific set of materials

and then to move the student toward the ability to work alone. In mathematics education,

scaffolding can foster students’ creative and divergent thinking skills, and enhance their

independence, sense-making and self-confidence (McCosker & Diezmann, 2009; Williams,

2008).

Introduction

The strong tradition of teacher-directed instruction has been regarded as a major teaching and

learning style in Thai education even though the recent policy changes have focused on more

student-centred pedagogies (Carter, 2006). Puacharearn and Fisher (2004) claimed that

common classroom practices in most Thai primary schools still are primarily teacher-centred

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and conducted in a didactic lecture form. In practice, the teachers teach on a topic of the day

assigned by the school’s curriculum (Puacharearn & Fisher, 2004).

Krongthong (2003) proposed that the successful implementation of cooperative learning in

Thai primary mathematics classrooms requires three components: preparation of teachers,

preparation of instructional materials and the preparation of students. Puacharearn and Fisher

(2004) support Krongthong’s study by claiming that the successful implementation of

cooperative learning strategies could be achieved in Thai schools when Thai teachers were

provided with sound frameworks to inform their use of cooperative learning. These prior

studies showed that scaffolding techniques should be significant for applying cooperative

learning in Thai education system in three reasons: (a) scaffolding is understood as the

adjustment and appropriation of ideas rather than a simple transferring of information and

skills from teacher to learner (Goos, Galbraith & Renshaw, 2002), (b) scaffolding assists and

increases the students understanding of a problem (Shaffer, 2005), and (c) cognitive

scaffolding encourages student-centred learning in Thai classroom because it requires

teachers to offer students the opportunity to broaden their knowledge and skills (Hausfather,

1996).

However, there is still a lack of empirical evidence on the use and effectiveness of

scaffolding in Thai primary education. The paper is to investigate scaffolding techniques of a

teacher training program for cooperative learning in Thai primary mathematics education.

Two teachers were trained with cooperative learning strategies for one and a half weeks and

they implemented a cooperative learning in their mathematics class for six weeks. The

qualitative results showed that the both teachers are able to utilise scaffolding techniques -

proactive scaffolding, reactive scaffolding and scaffolding questions.

Scaffolding in cooperative learning

Cooperative learning has been shown to be effective in increasing student achievement when

teachers implement cooperative learning methods effectively (Veenman, Kenter & Post,

2000). In doing so, the role of teacher has important, positive and long-lasting implications

for students' academic and social development. Jollifee (2007) claimed that the positive

development of the necessary classroom culture includes receptiveness to students’ ideas,

equality, not just control or domination and honesty, warmth and friendliness such as smiling,

eye contact, reassuring gestures, not on a ‘stage’ but walking around the classroom. These

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can be achievable when firstly teachers have more interactions with students and secondly the

interactions are appropriately designed. Gillies and Boyle (2005) also argued that the frequent

student-teacher interaction provides teachers occasions for reflective examination of

individuals and groups, evaluation of their learning dynamics, and adjustment of instructional

plans to achieve the best learning experience for all students. The interaction also provides

students a greater sense of partnership with instructors in the learning progression, as well as

increased cognitive, social, and emotional benefits (Gillies & Ashman, 1998; Gillies, 2004;

Rojas-Drummond & Mercer, 2003). In this context, scaffolding instruction as a teaching

strategy needs to be appropriately designed and implemented.

Scaffolding refers to a specific mechanism used by adults and children during guided

participation, comprising a variety of physical and/or verbal aids, aiming to facilitate the

children’s progress towards competence (Rogoff, 1990). Wood, Bruner and Ross (1976)

introduced the idea of scaffolding to represent the way children’s learning can be supported

and emphasise the intent to support a sound foundation with increasing independence for the

learner. Theoretically, scaffolding originates from Vygotsky’s socio-cultural theory and his

concept of the zone of proximal development (ZPD). ZPD is the distance between what

students can do and the next learning that they can be helped to achieve with supports

(Vygotsky, 1978). In this sense, scaffolding instruction as the role of teachers is to support

students’ development and provide a supportive structure to let them get beyond the level of

what they can do (Raymond, 2000).

The process of scaffolding enables students to complete tasks that they are unable to do by

themselves because scaffolding stimulates learner activity in the ZPD (Vygotsky, 1978).

Pedagogically, scaffolding allows new knowledge to be cooperatively constructed; unfinished

or incorrect concepts to be challenged or corrected, or forgotten knowledge to be recalled

(Holton & Clark, 2006). Furthermore, teacher’s language in a cooperative learning structure

is more personal, friendly and informal than the whole class instruction (Gillies, 2004; 2011;

Hertz-Lazarowitz & Shachar, 1990). This allows the teacher to encourage and control

students’ self-regulation (Hartman, 2002). Gillies and Boyle (2005) found that the teachers’

appropriate scaffolding provide students with the ability to obtain benefits in term of

improved thinking and problem-solving during cooperative learning. They also found that the

quality of talk produced by the children scaffolded by the teachers’ modelling of

communication skills greatly influence the extent of their students’ learning.

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However, doubts have been expressed about the educational viability of introducing

cooperative learning into Asian school systems with their different histories and cultures.

Such as the major teaching and learning style in Thai education has been teacher-directed

instruction (Carter, 2006; Puacharearn & Fisher, 2004) and students were poor participants in

classroom discussion (Deveney, 2005; Zakaria & Iksan, 2007). To enable Thai students to

gain more academic achievement and social adjustment in cooperative learning classrooms,

Thai teachers need to be able to use scaffolding instruction to optimise learning.

Types of scaffolding in cooperative learning

A scaffolding technique has been referring to an intentional assistance providing ‘another’ for

learning ends (Vygotsky, 1978). The teacher must pay attention to the gap between students’

efforts and the solution, control for frustration and risk, and model an idealized version of the

act (Hausfather, 1996). In doing so, three types of scaffolding are mostly used in cooperative

learning: proactive scaffolding, reactive scaffolding and scaffolding questions.

First, proactive scaffolding which occurs before the step it addresses (Wood, Wood &

Middleton, 1978). The proactive scaffolding rules are to offer less help in the next

intervening, if the student succeeds and to take over more control in the next intervening,

when the student fails (Wood, Wood & Middleton, 1978). When the students fail, the teacher

should take over more control in the next intervention. Wood, Wood and Middleton (1978)

described three types of proactive scaffolding as follows: (a) show-tell which means the

teacher tells students what to do and actually perform the step, (b) tell which means the

teacher tells students what to do and asks them to perform the step, (c) prompt which means

the teacher only prompts students to perform the step.

Second, reactive scaffolding (feedback) occurs immediately after the step. The teacher

provides minimal feedback on the first failure. If the students fail again in the same step, the

teacher has to provide help according to the students’ ability level. If the students still fail,

then the teacher provides more specific help show-tell (Wood, Wood, & Middleton, 1978).

McCosker and Diezmann’s (2009) study on scaffolding students’ thinking in mathematics

learning, which was undertaken with a Grade 3 class of 24 students, proved that the teacher’s

comment proved counterproductive in developing students’ reflection skills. The reason was

that the feedback may give students ‘permission’ to bypass reflective thinking. In other

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words, when teacher provide the feedback after the step to the students – reactive scaffolding,

the students are able to develop their creative and divergent thinking skills (McCosker &

Diezmann, 2009).

Third, the scaffolding questions used by the teacher intensely influence students’ ideas about

mathematics and how mathematics is presented in the classroom (Mason, 2000). Teachers

can develop students’ experience of mathematics by looking at the reason for asking

questions, and being aware of different categories of questions. Clarke (2001) defined generic

scaffolding questions in three general ways, each relating to a stage of problem solving. In

the first stage, a teacher may use the question “Have you seen a problem like this before?”

The second stage, while students are working on the task a teacher may ask, “Why is this idea

better than this one?” In the final stage the teacher may ask, “Does the answer look

reasonable? Is there another solution?” These questions support the scaffolding similar to

Manson’s (2000) study where there were three principal forms of questions which are

focused on attention, testing and enquiry. Normally, from an outsider’s view, questions are

usually asked when people want to find out the answer but teachers ask questions to which

they already know the answer in order to find out if the children understand.

Method

The literature review led to the necessity of investigating scaffolding instruction in Thai

primary education. The participant teachers were asked to use scaffolding to increase

students’ problem solving skills, group work skill, and self-confidence. Then the observation

and interview results were analysed and discussed with the three types of scaffolding.

- Participants

Mrs Supa and Mrs Malee (pseudonyms) in a Thai primary school, who do not have

cooperative learning experiences, were invited to participate in an experimental teacher

training program for cooperative learning. Then the teachers implemented a cooperative

learning in their mathematics class for six weeks. Mrs Supa is a grade 3 teacher who has nine

years of teaching experience in the school. Her main method of addressing the needs of the

low achievers is to give them easier exercises compared to the average and high achieving

students. Mrs Malee, a grade 4 teacher, has six years teaching experience in the school and

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used whole class lessons to teach her students mathematical content from the Thai

mathematics curriculum.

- Teacher training & implementation

The literature reviews above showed that understanding the theoretical underpinnings of the

metaphor could assist teachers’ learning the variety of scaffolding techniques and making

appropriate decisions about their cooperative learning classroom application. The teacher

preparation phase was conducted for one and a half weeks with five preparation workshops.

The program provided information on cooperative learning, ZPD, cognitive scaffolding,

cultural tools and signs, and knowledge building (epistemic agency). Table 1 presents the

content of workshop sessions related to the teacher training of scaffolding.

Table 1 Teacher training content

Workshop Content Theoretical Foundations

Cooperative Learning;

Introduction of STAD (Student Teams Achievement

Division) Model

Artzt & Newman, 1999; Grineski, 1993; Johnson

& Johnson, 2004; Slavin, 1995

Social cultural theories of learning Rogoff, 1990; Scardamalia, 2002; Vygotsky,

1978; 1981

Scaffolding instruction:

Proactive scaffolding; Reactive scaffolding; and

scaffolding questions.

Clarke, 2001, Mason, 2000; Matsuda & Van Lehn,

2005; Wood, Wood & Middleton, 1978.

Following the teacher training, the cooperative learning skills were applied in two units of

mathematics lessons (3 lessons each week for six weeks) that focused on the learning of

geometry and fractions (Grade 3) and time and measurement (Grade 4).

- Data collection and analysis

A grounded approach adapted from Cresswell’s (2005) visual model of coding was utilised to

analyse data derived from the teacher interviews and the classroom observations. The

analysis set out to identify themes relevant to the teachers’ perception about how two teachers

implemented scaffolding technique in their cooperative learning classrooms.

Primary data was derived from a teacher interviews at the conclusion of the classroom

implementation of the cooperative learning. The teacher interviews set out to identify how the

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teachers have scaffolded the students learning and working in the cooperative learning. The

question asked in the interview was:

1. How do you establish the scaffolding techniques in your cooperative learning

classroom?

2. Describe cooperative learning in your math classroom.

Secondary data was derived from the classroom observation conducted during the course of

the implementation.

Results

The findings reported that the teachers can facilitate mathematics learning for their students

by scaffolding their students’ building of knowledge structures about social skills and

mathematical concepts and processes. As proposed, scaffolding techniques the teachers

utilised are exemplified as follows:

- Proactive scaffolding

The observations of the cooperative learning maths classes and from the post-intervention

interview with the teachers indicated that Mrs Supa utilised actively enhanced the team social

skills and role play skills of the students in her classroom by modelling how the Grade 3

students could provide help and support their team members in their cooperative learning

classroom. Mrs Supa told her students about their ability to affect the team’s score. She tried

to make the students proud of themselves and ensure that every student is equally important

in the group. Mrs Supa stated:

The students will have more responsibility when they know that they are an

important person in the group. They will try harder in their study because they

do not want to disappoint their friends. Then they will gain the knowledge from

working with friends. It makes students want to learn and work in a group.

The statement showed that Mrs Supa proactively scaffolded both social skills and

mathematical knowledge building by encouraging her students to discuss the mathematics

and group learning skills with their friends. She also said, I always listen to their

conversations and motivated them to talk, discuss, and change their opinion. I helped them to

have responsibility for their group and they have to analyse their new knowledge in each

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lesson. Mrs Supa noted that she planned to scaffold a different group in detail each day while

maintaining the other groups.

By contrast, although Mrs Malee scaffolded each group equally during her mathematics

classroom, her scaffolding was focused on and operated with usage of social skills and the

completion of the task rather than on the mathematical knowledge building. During the

cooperative learning in the sequence of time lessons, Mrs Malee monitored her classroom

closely. She walked around the classroom. She scaffolded her students’ learning, answering

questions, and encouraged students to work with their team members. Mrs Malee noted that:

I needed to pay more attention to Teams D, E, and F because these teams had

students who might not provide good cooperation with their friends. There was

one boy in team D, one girl in team E and two boys in team F. These students

had problems with their friends because of their own personality. For example,

they interrupted their friends while they were studying and did not pay

attention to the subject matter.

In fact, Mrs Malee more frequently scaffolded those students’ learning by encouraging them

to work with their friends and to resolve the given problems. The students listened to her and

started to work together as a team.

To sum up, during the period of classroom implementation the both teachers utilised

proactive scaffolding technique in their cooperative learning classroom. They answered the

questions, listened to their students’ conversations, introduced group roles, reminded the

students to support their friends, checked the students’ understanding of the lesson and

assisted the students’ group work process. The difference between them was that Mrs Supa

proactively scaffolded both social skills and mathematical knowledge building whereas Mrs

Malee organised her cooperative learning class as she walked around the classroom and

supervised her students.

- Reactive Scaffolding

Team F in Mrs Supa’s class has two boys who tended to play and talk to each other while the

other two girls tried to complete the exercises. Sometimes, one of the girls drew a picture or

read a comic book instead of being involved in the cooperative group activity. Thus, in this

team, most of the exercises were finished by one person. Mrs Supa noted, Team F needs

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more support and attention from the teacher. They will participate with their friends when the

teacher encourages them to talk, and helps them to start their conversations. Mrs Supa was

aware that this team needs much more scaffolding and support than any of the other teams.

Mrs Supa encouraged the students to work with their friend by utilising rewards.

Sometimes I know that they have argued before, and then I tried to motivate

them. For example, telling them about the advantage of working in a group,

talking about the reward, or appreciating their work. The situation each day is

very different. It depends on the classroom’s activities and I have to solve their

problems.

Mrs Supa thus convinced her students about the viability of teamwork and overcame many

students’ initial reticence about cooperative group work.

Mrs Malee also scaffolded her students’ group work when the problems occurred. She spent

more time in some groups when they needed help and more attention. Also, her major focus

seemed to be on scaffolding the completion of the task rather than on the mathematical

knowledge building. Mrs Malee noted that:

Before I scaffolded my students, I would find out which team need more help. I

sometimes wait to see if they could not answer the questions or they have

argued. I asked them to show me their answers. If they fail, I normally guide

them first. I would not give them the correct answers straight away.

The data from classroom observation indicated that Mrs Malee did not spend much time to

encourage her students to use social skills. Rather she monitored and evaluated her students’

cooperative team work and the whole class participation.

- Scaffolding questions

The classroom observations noted that Mrs Supa tried to scaffold her students learning by the

three types of the scaffolding questions: “Have you ever seen this question before?”, “Why

do you answer the questions like this?” “Can you find another answer?” “Are there other

opinions from your group?” Mrs Supa said that she used the questions to enhance their

understanding of the math problems or the maths question. On the other hand, the data

collected from teacher interview revealed that Mrs Malee had gain more understanding about

the use of scaffolding questions in mathematics classroom. She said:

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I better understand the use of questions. I can now use the right and suitable

questions with the student. Before, I just asked questions of the students without

concern of the question type. Now I can organize or prepare before I use the

question. For example, if I want to know the students’ understanding of my

lesson, I know now what type of question I should ask them. If I want to know

the students’ interest in my lesson I can ask them, “Have you ever learnt or

studied this lesson before?” When the students answer, “Yes, I have seen and

learnt this lesson before”, it might mean that they are interested in my lesson.

This is the first question that is used to show the interest of the students. The

second question is to test their knowledge. This question will be used during my

teaching time. We might teach them first and ask them how much they have

understood of the lesson by using a good question. Third, it is a question to

search for the information from them and it is the last question. The teacher

might ask, “Do you have another answer?” or “How can you use this lesson in

your real life situation?”

The results indicate that the both teachers utilised scaffolding questions to aim to improve

their students’ understanding of mathematical contents. In cooperative learning, the

frequency and the quality of teachers’ scaffolding influenced the students’ teamwork and

students’ mathematics achievement.

Discussion and Recommendations

The analysis of data found that Mrs Supa tended to use proactive scaffolding and scaffolding

questions in her class rather than the use of reactive scaffolding. In contrast, Mrs Malee

utilised more reactive scaffolding rather than using proactive scaffolding and scaffolding

questions. Mrs Supa actively enhanced the team social skills and role play skills of the

students in her classroom by modelling how the students could provide help and support their

team members in their cooperative learning classroom. This could be because Mrs Supa has

experience in the use of peer tutoring.

The teachers were able to build on and extend their knowledge about cooperative learning to

such an extent, that by the end of this study, they developed much expertise in the

implementation of cooperative learning. In particular, they frequently asked scaffolding

questions and comments that permitted their students to achieve goals that they would have

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been unable to achieve otherwise (Rogoff, 1990) that allowed new knowledge to be

constructed (Clark, 2001), that enabled unfinished or incorrect concepts to be challenged or

corrected, or forgotten knowledge to be recalled (Holton & Clark, 2006).

It can be claimed that the teacher training with scaffolding techniques allowed the teachers to

have self-confidence for implementation of cooperative learning, and improved their

capability of utilising cooperative learning. This is consistent with Abrami, Poulsen and

Chambers’ (2004) study on teacher perceptions that teacher self-confidence, practicality of

implementation, and adequate training in cooperative learning principles and techniques

promote successful implementation. Furthermore, during the implementations of cooperative

learning, interactions between the students and the teachers and between the students have

been significantly increased, which can be hardly found in typical Thai classrooms. This

could be one of benefits from the scaffolding that provides teachers the capacity to create

opportunities for students to dialogue together when they establish cooperative learning

activities in their classrooms (Gillies & Boyle, 2005).

The findings indicate that Thai cultures merely affected the effectiveness of cooperative

learning. Rather individual students’ attitudes and motivation toward cooperative learning

would be most influential factors in success of cooperative learning. Yet, as seen, teachers’

appropriate usage of scaffolding techniques can control the factors. This is consistent with

Bulut’s cross-cultural study (2010) on the usage of cooperative learning with university

students from five different countries to the extent that students’ cultural background does not

make significant difference in the ways that learners perceive of any learning strategy

applications. Bulut also claimed that teachers who are familiar with cooperative learning and

understand students’ cultural attributes and learning environments are the key elements

necessary for the success of cooperative learning.

This initiative study showed that difficulty or failure of implementing cooperative learning in

Thailand education may not be derived from cultural difference, but the lack of teachers’

awareness of characteristics of scaffolding and cooperative learning. This implies that the

Thai teacher training for cooperative learning should provide a clear understanding of the

conceptual basis of scaffolding practices and cooperative learning principles in general and in

relation to subject teaching.

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Conclusion

This paper has provided the example of how two Thai teachers utilised the scaffolding

strategy in their classrooms. The teachers, who had different teaching experience and

teaching style, implemented differently scaffolding strategies in their classrooms, but they

demonstrated that they are able to implement cooperative learning in their mathematics

teaching by applying scaffolding techniques. This study results showed that teacher’s

capability of utilising scaffolding techniques are more influential factors that lead to the

success of cooperative learning in Thailand. It can be summarised that Thai teacher training

program needs to include (a) clear concepts of scaffolding strategies (proactive and reactive

scaffoldings and scaffolding questions); (b) how the different means of scaffolding utilised

depend on the current needs of the students and/or the classroom situation; (c) making

decisions about when and how much scaffolding should be provided; and (d) how to scaffold

both cooperative learning teamwork and subject knowledge building.

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