ABSTRACT

During classroom instruction, teachers often attempt to scaffold students’ understanding of lesson content. But how is this scaffolding achieved? One obvious possibility is that teachers adjust the ways in which they communicate information relevant to the lesson. Surprisingly, relatively little is known about how teachers vary their communicative behavior in order to scaffold student understanding. However, video technology has greatly increased the range of behaviors that can come under rigorous study. Using video analysis techniques, we examined a teacher’s use of verbal and gestural forms of communication.