Thirteenth International Conference on e-Learning & Innovative Pedagogies

Abstract

When examining education in the world, nurturing critical thinkers in post-secondary education is a more serious challenge today than ever before at a time when the classrooms have undergone significant demographic changes. This presentation aims to address the needs of effectively teaching diverse populations by examining an innovative student-centered pedagogical framework (Author, 2018; Moses & Cobb, 2001). Findings from this study suggest that the strength of Moses’ framework lies in incremental steps of scaffolding: 1) physical experience, 2) pictorial representation, 3) people talk, 4) feature talk, and 5) symbolic representation. It integrates students’ previous experience and knowledge, provides multi-layered scaffolding, and enables rich use of informal and formal languages. It is particularly helpful in teaching underserved populations, including English language learners who need appropriate scaffolding to make their learning meaningful. Furthermore, the study indicates that it can be used across a wide spectrum of disciplines and grade levels and provides step-by-step pedagogical scaffolding that is founded on social constructivism. Beginning the lesson with Step 1 provides a non-threatening and common entry point for diverse learners, which lowers down their affective filter that may hinder their learning. Engaging diverse learners through a common activity, followed by expressing their learning non-verbally and verbally with their peers using their own language empowers them to take ownership of their learning. This liberating pedagogical framework holds promise to teach today’s diverse populations, freeing students from being passive participants of traditional teacher-centered approach to active agents of their own learning.