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"A good example of the difference between instructional packaging and instructional scaffolding was provided recently by Debbie Morrison in her post A tale of two of MOOCs: divided by pedagogy.  In a very useful table (reproduced below) she compares the approaches taken by the (very popular, connectivist) e-Learning and Digital Cultures MOOC with the (aborted, instructivist) Fundamentals of Online Education MOOC. (The first is a great example of instructional scaffolding.)"

If you think of riding a bike in terms of pedagogy, training wheels are what learning experts call scaffolding.

"er book has a lot of practical advice for teachers, obviously. We want to talk to her about that. But I thought it would be interesting also, given the focus of our site at MOOC News and Reviews to ask her advice for students, and, of course, to get her observations about the addition of MOOCs into the online learning landscape. So we're going to cover all of those as much as we have time for."

While the participants in each conversation deserve the most credit for jumping into play as a pathway for transforming professional practice, the aforementioned facilitators helped scaffold dynamic settings for learning during our time together which felt both entirely awesome and all too short. In response to both on-site and online feedback, I wanted to share some notes on practice before too much time goes by.

"This kind of learning can't be scaffolded or too-carefully architectured but must be discovered in the act. In A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change, Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown write, "Our understanding comes not through a linear progression, in which each step confirms that you are on the right path. Rather, it arises through approaching the problem from many angles and ultimately seeing its logic only at the end" (98)."

"Good automated feedback gets students writing more. This is the most important thing that any scaffolding for writing can do. The best thing that writers can do to improve their writing is to write more, and to keep practicing. Many students, though, are going to be stuck at the first draft above - they won't see how they can expand. Inexperienced writers need to be nudged in the right direction with advice like this teacher gives. By giving specific suggestions for how a writer can improve, this teacher is keeping students engaged in the writing process."

Created by William Horton (2006), this model is most useful in 1) providing a lens for instructors to be intentional about the variety and balance of activities provided in a course, and 2) building scaffolded activity sequences that require progressively higher order thinking skills.

"Although Web 2.0 assists educators with guiding learners to complete tasks and supports the scaffolding of lessons to meet course objectives, there are more advanced pedagogical implications when using Web 2.0 as an instructional tool, such as fostering information literacy and metacognition."