Chapter 3. Scaffolding Metacognition and Resource Activation During Problem Solving: A Continuum Perspective

Problem solving in chemistry supported by metacognitive scaffolding: teaching associates’ perspectives and practices

“…Scaffolds break down problems and convert the required problem-solving steps into prompts. These prompts incorporate processes, such as resource activation and metacognition (Graulich et al, 2021). Scaffolding aims to provide temporary support for learners to be able to independently solve problems in the future.…”

“…An example of a metacognitive scaffold is Goldilocks Help (Fig. 1) (Yuriev et al, 2017;Yuriev et al, 2019a;Graulich et al, 2021). Goldilocks Help structures problem solving for general and physical chemistry problems and includes metacognitive prompts that assist students to solve a problem, particularly when they do not know where to start and/or how to proceed in the right direction.…”

“…Goldilocks Help scaffold was used to guide their work on numeric problems and to emphasise the conceptual underpinnings of such problems (through the ''Understand'' and ''Analyse'' prompts) as well as metacognitive and process skills (through the ''Plan'' and Evaluate'' prompts). The examples of relevant problems are described in previous publications (Yuriev et al, 2017;Yuriev et al, 2019a;Graulich et al, 2021). Each TA facilitated the work of 2-3 student groups with a total ratio of 15-18 students per TA.…”

“…Metacognitive scaffolds, such as Goldilocks Help, are designed to be external to a specific task (Graulich et al, 2021). The benefit of this scaffold type is its explicitness in bringing metacognitive elements of problem solving to the front of mind, particularly the cognitively-and procedurally-demanding elements of ''Understand'' and ''Evaluate''.…”

“…Structuring problem-solving process during instruction exposes students to effective problem solving, places emphasis on the development of such skills as problem restructuring (Bodner and McMillen, 1986), reasoning, and reflection on the solution outcome (Yuriev et al, 2017), and helps students navigate novel problem-solving scenarios (Bodner and Herron, 2002). Such instructional support can be achieved through scaffolding (Graulich et al, 2021).…”