Developing teacher candidates’ competence in scaffolding students as they work with texts in Norwegian language arts

Abstract

Working with texts is at the core of the Norwegian language arts subject but many students in secondary school will require substantial support from the teacher to master this highly discipline specific endeavor. For this reason, it is important that teacher candidates learn how to scaffold students as they work with texts in language arts. This study reports on an innovation in teacher education for grades 8 to 13 where teacher candidates utilized video recordings, both on campus and in field placement, to engage with three practices for instructional scaffolding; strategy instruction, modeling, and oral feedback. Drawing on video data from the candidates’ own language arts teaching and interviews with the candidates and their mentors, this study examines how the candidates make use of the practices for instructional scaffolding in different disciplinary settings and what factors promote success in doing so. The findings show that the candidates provided extensive scaffolding of students’ work with literary analysis, rhetoric, and academic writing. Key success factors included the candidates’ own disciplinary literacy in language arts and their repertoire of scaffolding techniques. The study contributes insight into the type of competence that teacher candidates need to be able to scaffold students’ text work. Further, it suggests that teacher candidates need more training in supporting critical and exploratory approaches to text within the Norwegian language arts subject. In addition, the study demonstrates an approach to teacher education that can be suitable for developing such competence.