Scaffolding for in-person interactions

Thinking about how I can apply some positive conference experiences to my teaching and facilitation

In an unusual turn of events, I attended a conference last week and returned feeling pretty positively about the experience. In addition to attending conference sessions (about which I have abundant and complicated thoughts to be shared in another post) I spoke one-on-one with a lot more people than I was expecting to. These meet-ups fell into two major categories: One category was first in-person meetings with folks who I don’t yet know well but have connected with on social media, including readers of this newsletter and connections from LinkedIn. The second was time spent with people with whom I have had ongoing friendships, collaborations, or mentor-mentee relationships that were significant but mostly remote. Both sets of meetings were enriching. Live and in-person interactions, especially at large gatherings, can be somewhat challenging for me and when I have a positive experience I tend to think about what made it so. 

It occurs to me that this was an issue of “scaffolding.” The concept of scaffolding as applied in education refers to initial provision of support for complex tasks (like breaking down a process into individual steps) and often a gradual release of responsibility to the student. Like the temporary structures that support a building or other construction project that is still in progress, students can benefit from various types of support and opportunities to practice a skill before attempting to demonstrate that skill on their own. Scaffolding for social interactions, whether in the classroom or elsewhere, would thus involve some of these practice, feedback, and support opportunities for interpersonal matters, rather than working under the assumption that these are easy or intuitive to navigate.  

A type of scaffolding I personally benefit from is having opportunities to connect in a variety of less spontaneous or “kairotic” ways in advance of in-person interactions. Pretty much every relationship that is important to me has a significant component of asynchronous, text-based communication. It is the way I am most comfortable communicating, and in my head, I view in-person interactions as one piece of the pie that is a friend or colleague relationship, no more important than emails, calling, texting, Zooming, or interacting on social media. (If you want to get to know me better, write me a long email! Just be aware I will probably write you a longer one back). Some other people may view in-person interactions as the entire pie, and the other communications as basically garnish or toppings. Beyond the issue of personal preferences, this distinction has of course become a major issue in most workplaces, with different employers requiring different amounts of on-site work time.

I mention the idea of scaffolding for in-person social interactions in many of my campus visits about neurodiversity, and I am still in the process of developing a concise definition of this concept and set of useful examples. As part of this work, I was reflecting on some of my own recent experiences and how I might apply the lessons to my own teaching and facilitation work.

Before I share these ideas, I wanted to add a preface that I do not think all learning or professional development should be based around my needs or preferences or those of someone similar to me. All learning needs to balance and negotiate a number of different and sometimes contrasting needs. These ideas are not meant to be an endorsement of in-person conferencing (which is not accessible at all for some people), rather a reflection on an actual experience of this activity. The ideas are intended to be a way of reconsidering some assumed norms or defaults of some social learning situations. While there is probably a very long list of such norms or defaults that deserve scrutiny, three ideas that occurred to me this week were:

1. Reconsider the default primacy of meeting new people

2. Explicitly support name and face recognition

3. Reduce pressure on the “in-person” slice of the pie, even during “in-person” moments

Reconsider the default primacy of “meeting new people”

At past conferences, I have assumed that it was important to meet a lot of new people. This is, of course, basically the only option available if you don’t know anyone at a conference, a situation I have been in many times myself. At the conference I just attended, I worried the week before that I had planned meetings with people I already know during meals and breaks, leaving no time for spontaneous conversation with brand new acquaintances. I challenged myself to explain why this was a problem, and could not come up with much besides “I remember being told as a grad student that I need to network (meaning meet new people) at conferences.” Perhaps deepening existing connections is as valuable a form of networking as making brand new ones. It is certainly life-giving for me, even if not properly considered “networking.”

In a classroom teaching context, there is sometimes an emphasis on newness in social learning that isn’t necessary, and some students may benefit from fewer and more sustained social connections in the classroom. I think of group activities where students are sorted into random groups each class, potentially never working with the same people twice in a row or twice at all. I think of “turn and talk to your neighbor” activities followed immediately by “turn and talk to your other neighbor.” The same way I felt a deep sense of security knowing that 2-3 trustworthy friends would be at this conference, some students may feel more ready to engage at first if they have the option of working with a friend they know from another class, high school, or another setting. Meeting new people has many benefits, but I think it is also worth thinking about how it takes up a lot of bandwidth for some students, competing with various learning goals. For this reason, I tend to avoid activities where there is a goal to meet new people and make progress towards some other learning goal at the same time.

Explicitly support name and face recognition

I am an active participant in social media conversations with many of the people who attended this conference. I realized while I was there that I felt a lot more confident while talking to people when I recognized their name and or face from their social media or email avatar. Having this information available to me on my phone served as a type of scaffolding for the in-person interactions. For example, if I was planning to meet with someone I would check their email signature and or social media profile to recall their first and last name, appearance, and anything else included there like pronouns or institutional affiliation. Obviously people’s appearance can change but reviewing an available photo is helpful.

In Dr. Michelle Miller’s new book about learning student names (geared toward instructors) she offers that learning names is an impactful contribution to community building that introverts and other people less disposed toward small talk can make. Additionally, she mentions that efforts to help students learn and use one another’s names “can help students learn to individuate their classmates, and that in itself can be the foundation for the social relationships that nourish success in college over the long term.” I think I can be doing more to help my students with name and face recognition, which may generally support social confidence or participation as well as a warmer classroom environment. Perhaps this can also provide some balance with my first consideration (reconsidering the imperative to meet or work with new people). If overall, students in a class (or faculty in a program) are doing better with working in groups that remain constant over many weeks, a warm large-group climate can still be encouraged by frequent practice and use of the other participants’ names. Dr. Miller’s book talk a lot about “learning” (memorizing) student names which goes a little beyond some lower-effort strategies that could still serve as scaffolding for interpersonal success, like use of name tags or a class roster with pictures. It was a very interesting coincidence that I realized the benefits of name and face recognition practice for myself at the same time this book was being actively discussed at the conference.

Reduce pressure on the “in-person” slice of the pie, even during “in-person” moments

The feeling that “This event only comes around once a year so one needs to make the most of it” is likely a little anxiety-inducing even for those who thrive at large, busy gatherings. Given that most people these days are easy enough to contact by email or speak to on Zoom, a ready alternative to long conversations at conferences is just, “Let’s find a time to talk after the conference.” This option helped me get up the courage to say “hi” to someone or introduce myself even if I didn’t have the energy for a long conversation. I am reminded of the countless times a student or a faculty participant in professional development activities came up to me after a session and said nothing besides, “My name is x and I’m planning to come to office hours/email you later to ask you some questions.” This is often after saying nothing at all during the class. To my mind, the less loyalty we have to a hierarchy of interactions the better. 

One thing that I find helps to encourage a range of participation modes in my classes is to explicitly state this lack of adherence to a hierarchy, which often leads to the quieter or less verbal students actually contributing on discussion boards or through text-response systems rather than not participating at all. As a learner who often did not do very well with the learning modes offered during class sessions, I always wished an instructor would openly acknowledge the possibility that the activities might not be ideal for everyone. I will continue to think about how to communicate to students and faculty that the door does not close on the learning that I facilitate just because a particular time-bound moment has passed.

These reflections may feel like a mirror of some of your own, a window into a totally different perspective, or some combination. However similar or different we are, it could be useful to consider your own experiences in a social learning situation and think about how those experiences would apply in your own classroom. UDL researcher Kavita Rao summarizes learner variability with the four categories “abilities and strengths, support needs, backgrounds and experiences, and preferences and interests” which I extend to instructors as well - there is a lot of continuity between student experiences and our own, and we frequently take on the student role in our lives as instructors (such as during professional development activities). As part of exploring this rich space of learner variability, I would welcome others’ experiences of social learning and what kind of scaffolding or other support enhances your experience. Please feel free to contact me or comment if you are logged into Substack.

References:

Miller, M. D. (2024). A Teacher’s Guide to Learning Student Names: Why You Should, Why It's Hard, How You Can (Vol. 2). University of Oklahoma Press.

Rao, K. (2021). Inclusive Instructional Design: Applying UDL to Online Learning. The Journal of Applied Instructional Design: January 2021, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.59668/223.3753

Yergeau, M. et al. (2013). Multimodality in motion: Disability and Kairotic Spaces. Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy, 18(1). http://technorhetoric.net/18.1/coverweb/yergeau-et-al/index.html.

Photo by Ivan Aleksic on Unsplash.