Scaffolding Approach in Teaching

 Scaffolding Approach in Teaching

The scaffolding approach to teaching and learning is most effective at any level of education. At the Masters level, I believe there are a few ways student learning may be enhanced through the use of scaffolding:

1. Preparation material: Provide learners with the knowledge required for learning. This may include books, audio files, videos, etc...

2. Q/A venue: Provide learners with a discussion board or other means of receiving feedback from the instructor and fellow learners. Seminars are also an effective forum. 

3. Practice materials: Students should be provided the opportunity to practice what they should know, and will be assessed on before being assessed. Feedback is imperative during the practice phase.

4. Academic/Practitioner: A formative assessment that requires the student to relate academic research and discipline-based knowledge with practitioner based experiences, observations, and research. 

5. Authentic Assessments: This type of assessment is particularly important for students in a MBA program. In an authentic assessment, it is imperative that students are only required to demonstrate what they were expected to learn in all activities prior to the assessment. This type of assessment should be reality based and career oriented.

6. Traditional Assessments: This form of assessment is typically objective in nature, and may come in the form of an exam. This is typically a discipline-based assessment that tests the level and depth of knowledge. 

7. Reflection: Students should be able to reflect on what they have learned throughout a week or module. This may be in the form of a learning journal, a reflection essay, etc...

Over 11 years of experience, these are the best practices that I have used when teaching a course, whether online or on ground. One of my favorite approaches in facilitating a course is through the use of the Socratic method. I believe asking the right questions to help a student construct knowledge and skills are very effective. As students progress throughout a degree program, the level and context of learning should incrementally increase, and the business curriculum should be designed so students are exposed to the cross-functional dependency of discipline based topics. As the knowledge and skills compound over time and throughout the degree program, students should be prepared to perform a culminating project such as a dissertation. 

Case Study: Transitional Housing, Inc.

Transitional Housing, Inc.

Transitional Housing, Inc. (THI), is a local nonprofit organization located in Madison, Wisconsin. THI provides assistance to homeless and very low income individuals and families in finding emergency shelter, food, employment, transitional housing, and affordable apartment housing. These services are provided through four basic THI programs (see exhibit below for details):

1. The Drop-In Shelter: An emergency drop-in shelter for men located at Grace Episcopal Church.

2. The Hospitality House: A day shelter for homeless and very low income men and women.

3. The Transitional Housing Program: Provides transitional living arrangements for families and single men for six months or more depending on the needs of the individual/family and the unit.

4. The Housing Opportunity Program: Helps families in obtaining a lease.

As part of its planning, the board of directors of THI was interested in determining ways to improve the organization’s services. Their original thought was to conduct a survey of the organization’s paid staff, volunteers, and guests (the homeless staying at THI or using its facilities or services), to determine which programs of THI they found particularly useful, which should be revised, and what other programs or services might be of more assistance to guests.

However, the analysis of THI’s internal statistics and other published data indicated the need for THI to narrow its focus. Specifically, internal information indicated the number of agencies serving the male homeless population was decreasing, and the number of homeless families was increasing. Moreover, THI was currently the only Madison shelter that served the male homeless population, and this community appeared to be underserved. In fact, the number of homeless men staying at THI’s Drop-In Shelter had increased 89 percent, from 607 three years ago to 1,146 the past year. This was partly due to the closing of other Madison male shelters in the last three years. Finally, the THI shelter was filled beyond its capacity of 66 men per night. During the winter, there were frequently more than 90 men staying at the Drop-In Shelter on any given night, with many of them sleeping on the hallway floor.

Given this information, the board of directors decided to use the organization’s limited resources to focus first on the Drop-In Shelter. More specifically, the board asked for an evaluation of THI’s current facilities and the services for the homeless as well as a determination of what future services and facilities it should try to provide.

Questions

1. What is the decision problem? Is this decision problem discovery- or strategy-oriented?

2. What are some relevant research problems?

3. Discuss in general terms how you would address the board of directors’ concerns. Specifically, who would you obtain information from and how would you access these people?

EXHIBIT 1.B-1

Programs Offered by Transitional Housing, Inc.

Drop-In Shelter

Located at the Grace Episcopal Church in the downtown area, the Drop-In Shelter (DIS) is a 46-person-capacity emergency drop-in shelter for men. Overflow capacity for 20 additional people is provided at St. John’s Lutheran Church from October through April. The basic services provided at DIS are shelter, food, personal grooming supplies, and counseling. Medical and legal services are also provided once a week through volunteers. The shelter is open to all men who are not incapacitated by drugs or alcohol and agree to abide by the rules of DIS. Operating hours are from 8:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. seven days per week, 365 days per year. Both dinner and breakfast are provided for DIS guests through the support of approximately 1,200 volunteers (churches, community groups, and other interested individuals) who offer their help to DIS.

Hospitality House

Hospitality House (HH), located on the near west side, is a day shelter and resource center for homeless and very low income men, women, and children. HH is generally regarded as a warm, safe place for the homeless to congregate, where services are provided but are not mandatory. The basic services provided at HH are: assistance with finding employment and housing, help for obtaining benefits from other social service agencies, and mental health services. Telephones are available for the guests’ use, and guests may also use HH as a mailing address while they are staying at DIS.

Transitional Housing Program

The Transitional Housing Program (THP) operates 15 traditional housing sites throughout Dane County. There are 20 family units and 39 single units. Residents of THP may stay in the units for a period of six months to “permanent,” depending on the unit and the needs of the individual or family. Services provided to the residents of the THP include: money management, employment counseling, case management, and referrals to agencies involved in providing services needed by the individual or family. DIS is often the first step in the process of single men involved in THP.

Housing Opportunity Program

The Housing Opportunity Program (HOP) is a service provided by THI that is designed to aid families in obtaining a lease in their own name and staying in the site on a permanent basis. THI leases apartments from area landlords and subleases the units to homeless families, whoa are referred to THI through area shelters. During this time, THI assumes responsibility for any unpaid rent or repairs that may accrue. Maintenance checks are performed monthly and outreach services are provided to families involved in the program.

Case Study: Big Brothers of Fairfax County

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Big Brothers of Fairfax County

Big Brothers of America is a social service program designed to meet the needs of boys ages six to 18 from
single-parent homes. Most of the boys served by the program live with their mothers and rarely see or hear from their fathers. The purpose of the program is to give these boys the chance to establish a friendship with an interested adult male. Big Brothers of America was founded on the belief that association with a responsible adult can help program participants become more responsible citizens and better adjusted young men.

The program was started in Cincinnati in 1903. Two years later, the organization was granted its first charter in New York State through the efforts of Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt. By the end of World War II, there were 30 Big Brothers agencies. Today there are 300 agencies across the United States, and more than 120,000 boys are matched with Big Brothers.

The Fairfax County chapter of Big Brothers of America was founded in Fairfax in 1966. In 1971, United Way of Fairfax County accepted the program as part of its umbrella organization and now provides about 85 percent of its funding. The remaining 15 percent is raised by the local Big Brothers agency.

Information about the Big Brothers program in Fairfax County reaches the public primarily through newspapers (feature stories and classified advertisements), radio, public service announcements, posters (on buses and in windows of local establishments), and word-of-mouth advertising. The need for volunteers is a key message emanating from these sources. The agency phone number is always included so that people wanting to know more about the program can call for information. Those calling in are given basic information over the telephone and are invited to attend one of the monthly orientation sessions organized by the Big Brothers program staff. At these meetings, men get the chance to talk to other volunteers and to find out what will be expected of them should they decide to join the program. At the end of the session, prospective volunteers are asked to complete two forms. One is an application form and the other is a questionnaire in which the person is asked to describe the type of boy he would prefer to be matched with, as well as his own interests.

The files on potential Little Brothers are then reviewed in an attempt to match boys with the volunteers. A match is made only if both partners agree. The agency stays in close contact with the pair and monitors its progress. The three counselors for the Big Brothers program serve as resources for the volunteer.

The majority of the inquiry calls received by the Fairfax County agency are from women who are interested in becoming Big Sisters or from people desiring information on the Couples Program. Both programs are similar to the Big Brothers program and are administered by it. In fact, of 55 calls concerning a recent orientation meeting, only five were from males. Only three of the five callers actually attended the meeting, a typical response.

Although the informational campaigns and personal appeals thus seem to have some effect, the results were also generally disappointing and did little to alleviate the shortage of volunteer Big Brothers. There are currently 250 boys waiting to be matched with Big Brothers, and the shortage grows weekly.

Big Brothers of Fairfax County believed that a lack of awareness and accurate knowledge could be the cause of the shortage of volunteers. Are there men who would volunteer if only they were made aware of the program and its needs? Or is the difficulty a negative program image? Do people think of Little Brothers as problem children, boys who have been in trouble with the law or who have severe behavioral problems? Or could there be a misconception of the type of man who would make a good Big Brother? Do people have stereotypes with respect to the volunteers—for example, that the typical volunteer is a young, single, professional male?

Questions

1. What are some possible marketing decision problems? State whether the decision problems are discovery- or strategy-oriented.

2. What are some relevant marketing research problems for the decision problems you have identified?

3. What types of information would be useful to answer these questions?

4. How would you go about securing this information?

Terrific Kid Ceremony Form

Your child has Terrific Character!!

Seven times a year, each Kindergarten through 8^th grade class nominates two students who have demonstrated the character trait of the month.

Your child ________________________________________

has been selected for outstanding Fairness.

Please join us in the Auditorium

on Tuesday, March 8 at 9:30 a.m.

 to congratulate our Terrific Kids.

A group photo will be taken of all students who were selected for            Terrific Kid. This photo will be published in the News Leader. To allow your child to be photographed with the group, please complete the bottom portion of this form and return to your child’s teacher.

Yes, my child _______________________________________ has my permission to be photographed for Terrific Kid. I understand that the picture will be published in the News Leader.

No, my child ________________________________________ cannot be photographed.

_______________________________________________           ___________________

  Parent/Guardian Signature                                                     Date

Policy for dealing with plagiarism, collusion and the fabrication of data

Policy for dealing with plagiarism and collusion of data

1) Above what percentage match would you open a Turnitin report to investigate further?
From the Instructor Handbook the following information was noted, “for short submissions (DQ, HA, AA) once a turnitin report turns yellow, open it and have a look at it. For longer submissions (e.g.module projects or dissertations) then any return of more than about 10% should be checked (it’s the number of words copied, not the percentage, which is relevant).”
The last sentence in critical for guidance in looking and evaluating the number of words copied not the percentage.
2) Under what circumstances can a student legitimately resubmit work from a previous class?

Students may ask to resubmit materials if they are repeating a class or have had a similar assignment in another class.  Students are required to inform their Instructors if they are doing this. If a student asks to resubmit materials, they must provide you with details of where the material has been used in the past and what modifications to it have been made for your assignment. The work must not be resubmitted in whole or in part when repeating a module for whatever reason, and the elements that are borrowed from previous submissions must be properly referenced, the same as any third party reference. The student must research each question independently of the first attempt, including using new references.  A student may be found to be plagiarising if there are substantial similarities to the original work, in particular if the previous work is not identified as such.

If the student is redoing work involving the study of a company, they are not allowed to use the same company as their subject.  However, if it is the company the student works for or there is some other strong reason the student wishes to use that company, you may give the student permission to use the same company. Whether the same company is used or not, the student must adhere to the conditions for resubmitting work as stated above.

3) You've already warned a student for an instance of plagiarism in your current class. In the following week the student appears to reoffend. What steps do you take?
From the Instructor Handbook the following information was noted from the instructor checklist:
“If you suspect that a student has committed Major plagiarism you should

·      write to the student indicating your concerns and identifying specific  part(s) of their work which you suspect have been plagiarized using the template letters

·      warn them that this is a breach of policy and that you must report this to the DOS

·      write to the DOS detailing your concerns and attaching the software matching report

·      you will need to give the student ID, their name, the class ID and the assessment you are concerned about

·      tell the DOS if you have previously warned the student about plagiarism including details of the assessment, the date you notified the student of this and the action you took.   They will then take this up with the student.”

4) How would you find out if a student has plagiarized in another module?

·      The following information was noted from the University of Liverpool Policy Handbook regarding Plagiarism:

·      3.2 If no previous case has been recorded then the normal course of action is for the examiner to issue a written warning to the student (see attachment for proposed wording); a note should be placed in the student’s records, including their records in SPIDER3, and the Assessment Officer4 in the department which ‘owns’ the module concerned should be informed.

·      3.3 If the student’s record shows that two previous warnings for minor plagiarism/embellishment of data have been issued, the examiner should initiate the procedure for dealing with major plagiarism, collusion and fabrication of data (see 3.5, below).

5) How many warnings does a student need to receive before they risk being removed from the programme?

The following information was noted from the University of Liverpool Policy Handbook regarding Plagiarism:

·      4.5 In a postgraduate programme, if major plagiarism is detected, the Board may decide to terminate a student's studies.

·      4.6 If a student is found to have committed major plagiarism, collusion or fabrication of data on a third occasion, namely three offences of the same type or any combination of major plagiarism, collusion and fabrication of data, the Board of Examiners shall determine that the student has failed to satisfy the requirements of the programme.

6) Does the intention of a student make a difference to how you respond to an instance of plagiarism?
Instructors must use academic judgment to determine if plagiarism was intentional or simply a matter of ignorance of the need to apply proper referencing. If you are in doubt consult the DOS; it if comes to a decision, give the benefit to the student.

7) Name the circumstances in which an occurrence of plagiarism should be treated as major.

Major Plagiarism: defined as:
• extensive paraphrasing or quoting without proper citation of the source (two or more sentences);
• lifting directly from a text or other academic source without reference; (Where material is taken directly from a text or other source the cited material should be demarcated with quotation marks or in some other accepted way and the source should be cited.)
• the use of essays (or parts thereof) from essay banks, either downloaded from the internet or obtained from other sources;
• presenting another’s designs or concepts as one’s own;
• continued instances of what was initially regarded as minor plagiarism despite two warnings having been given to the student concerned.

8) In what ways does the fact that the student is early in his or her first module make a difference in how we treat plagiarism?

The student may not fully understand the definition of plagiarism. Therefore from the Plagiarism Checklist in the Faculty Handbook the following information was noted:
• remind them that they should make sure they fully understand the university definition of plagiarism and the rules the students must follow. If in doubt, they can seek guidance from their Student Support Manager or the Academic Quality Assurance department in Amsterdam

9) What grade action do you take for a minor offence?

If a student is found to have committed minor plagiarism or embellishment of data, and has no record of a previous case, the student will be issued with a written warning but no penalty will be applied. The examiner may, however, use academic judgment in determining an appropriate mark for the assessment, in accordance with the relevant marking criteria and taking into account, as appropriate, matters such as the quality/accuracy of the referencing and citations, the quality of data presented, etc.

10) What grade action do you take for a major offence?

Enter an “I” (Incomplete) grade for the assignment.

11) Describe the substantive difference, for you, between a minor and major instance of plagiarism.

Minor plagiarism is a small amount of paraphrasing, quotation or use of diagrams, charts etc. without adequate citation.
Major plagiarism is:
• extensive paraphrasing or quoting without proper citation of the source;
• lifting directly from a text or other academic source without reference; (Where material is taken directly from a text or other source the cited material should be demarcated with quotation marks or in some other accepted way and the source should be cited.)
• the use of essays (or parts thereof) from essay banks, either downloaded from the internet or obtained from other sources;
• presenting another’s designs or concepts as one’s own;
• continued instances of what was initially regarded as minor plagiarism despite two warnings having been given to the student concerned.

12) What action would you take if you discover that the student's submission to Turnitin is different from the submission to the discussion thread?

Contact the student, explain your findings and ask for an explanation.

13) What do you do if you suspect a student has colluded with another student?

Determine if this is a major or minor case of plagiarism. Once decided take the appropriate action as outlined in the Faculty Handbook.

14) What is the penalty for collusion?                            

If it is determined that the student has committed collusion and therefore classified as major plagiarism then the grade awarded will be a zero.

15) What authority do you have as an instructor for dealing with plagiarism?

Instructor can determine if the assignment is either minor or major plagiarism. Once that determination is made, the instructor can take appropriate action as described in the Instructor Handbook.

16) What would you do if you found that a group submission has been plagiarised, and the students tell you that only one of them is responsible for the plagiarised work?

If one or more students are found to have copied the work of another student without the knowledge of that respective student, then this action should be treated as either minor or major plagiarism and any resulting warning or penalty (as applicable) should apply only to the student(s) that copied the work.

17) What happens if a monitor or one of the academic team discovers instances of plagiarism once the class has finished?

There still would be ramifications for the student even though the class had finished including not being awarded their respective degree.

The following information is from the University of Liverpool policy regarding plagiarism:

4.7 Students should be aware that committing plagiarism, fabrication of data or collusion may have serious consequences and that the University may choose not to award a Degree or other award to those students who have committed one or more of these acts.

Also from the Policy:

6.1 For some vocational and/or professional programmes there may be requirements for students to meet specified standards in respect of their fitness to practise in the relevant vocation or profession. Where a finding of plagiarism, collusion and/or fabrication of data against a student may call into question the student’s fitness to practise, this must be clearly stated in the programme information provided to students.

18) Are there any circumstances when you would excuse a clear instance of plagiarism?

No, there are no circumstances when plagiarism would be excused – From the Plagiarism Checklist in the Faculty Handbook the following information was noted:

For the online programmes we insist that students submit all work for assessment through an online matching tool such as SafeAssign or TurnItIn which produces a report on how closely or not the work matches with published sources, including previously submitted work from students, in its database. As an Instructor with us, it is your responsibility to check that the work submitted by students for grading is authentic. 

19) A student has just submitted a second instance of plagiarised work having done so the previous week, but the warning for the first instance has not yet been given to the student. What do you do about the second instance?

3.5 A second warning for minor plagiarism/embellishment of data cannot be counted as such and should be disregarded if a student has not yet received the first warning, as the student will not have had an opportunity to take heed of the warning and improve their work. Similarly a third warning, (which would lead to the procedures used for major plagiarism, collusion and fabrication of data) would not count as a third warning and should be disregarded if the student had not received the second warning; again the student will not have had the opportunity to improve their work. This is intended to cover situations where assessments are completed and marked within a short period of time. For this section to apply it needs to be clear that the student has not received the earlier warning.

22) Are there circumstances when you would clear a student's turnitin submission, and ask them to resubmit their work?

From the Instructor Handbook, “do not allow students to submit assignments more than once through turnitin.”

23) What actions would you take, if a student submits work that is correctly cited and referenced, but contains over 50% of copied text.

The instructor would first need to determine if this is minor or major plagiarism and address the plagiarism according to the information in the Instructor Handbook. The only situation where I could think this is minor plagiarism is a new student who is not familiar with the plagisrism policy. Therefore, the following per the Instructor Handbook would apply:

If a minor case (and the following also applies to embellishment of data cases): warn the student yourself using letter template 1, making sure that:

·      You have copied the warning letter to aacorrespondencef.

·      You have recorded it as a minor incident in VC.

·      You grade the work normally (there is no grade penalty for minor plagiarism).

·      If a major case (and the following also applies in cases of collusion and fabrication of data):

·      Enter the incident as ‘I’ (Investigate) in the VC

·      Send a letter to the student copied to the DOS saying you are referring the case letter template 2.

·      Copy all your correspondence to aacorrespondencef.

·      Enter an “I” (Incomplete) grade for the assignment.

                                                                      Reference

University of Liverpool (2012). Policy for dealing with plagiarism, collusion and the fabrication of data, [Online], Available: http://www.uol.ohecampus.com/instructorhandbook/teaching/docs/Plagiarism%20Collusion%20and%20Fabrication%20of%20Data%20-%20Policy%20-%20Senate%20summer%202009%20CA%20v%201%20.pdf