Scaffolding Knowledge
A powerful technique to communicate complexity
This is a new term I learned for a very familiar concept. It is a method of learning, where the student is taught new concepts in a scientific sequence.
We all have a certain boundary of knowledge. Any new concept is understood by expanding that boundary and making connections with the existing information and understanding.
When a completely new concept comes up for you, the natural way to make sense of it is by relating it to your current knowledge. That’s how we learn as babies, too.
However, if it’s too far away, where you need to understand multiple smaller things that connect to your existing knowledge. That is how we learn.
Now, if we could exactly match this process while teaching a new concept, it will be very easy to understand. Meaning, we start by connecting the smaller pieces of information, then build up to the main concept. That is called scaffolding. Very useful for complex topics.