;
Lorem Ipsum Dolor Spring 2016
11
Instrumental Supports
As special educators, we are often very adept at identifying and
providing the supports a student needs to be successful on a task. Where we
sometimes have to stop and reflect is when and how to pull back on those
supports as a student is ready to be more autonomous in the learning task. It
is also important to consider the quality of the support. Is it designed to guide
the student in engaging in thinking and decision-making
or does it simply
provide the student with information? Butler, Schnellert, and Perry (in press)
describe instrumental supports as those that provide meaningful scaffolds to
help students develop self-regulated learning. This can include providing
explicit instruction on good strategy selection and thinking processes,
modeling metacognitive thinking and self-evaluation processes, and providing
supports that help a student remember and move through strategic action
cycles. Table 1 shows an example within the ECC of how instrumental
supports and guidance changes as a student develops more self-efficacy.
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