Discovery learning continues to be a topic of heated debate. It has been called a zombie, and this special issue raises the question whether it may be a phoenix arising from the ashes to which the topic was burnt. However, in this commentary I propose it is more like an elephant--a huge topic approached by many people who address different…

Although learning scientific language is crucial for learning science, many primary school teachers lack the knowledge and skills to support this. The present case study reports on a primary school teacher who learned to use a repertoire of scaffolding strategies for stimulating pupils' scientific language development in inquiry-based science…

This article has two purposes: firstly to introduce this special issue on scaffolding and dialogic teaching in mathematics education and secondly to review the recent literature on these topics as well as the articles in this special issue. First we define and characterise scaffolding and dialogic teaching and provide a brief historical overview…

Developing mathematical inquiry practices requires that teachers are explicit about classroom norms that support these practices. In this study, we asked: "How can a teacher scaffold the development of norms and practices in mathematical inquiry over time?" Analysis of classroom video over a year showed that the teacher constantly…

The importance of language in mathematics learning has been widely acknowledged. However, little is known about how to make this insight productive in the design and enactment of language-oriented mathematics education. In a design-based research project, we explored how language-oriented mathematics education can be designed and enacted. We drew…

Developing argumentation-based inquiry practices requires teachers and students to be explicit about classroom norms that support these practices. In this study, we asked: "How can a teacher scaffold the development of argumentation-based inquiry norms and practices in a mathematics classroom?" A primary classroom (aged 9-10) was…

The concept of scaffolding refers to temporary and adaptive support, originally in dyadic adult-child interaction. It has become widely used, also in whole-class settings, but often in loose ways. The aim of this paper is to theoretically and empirically ground a conceptualisation of whole-class scaffolding so that it remains close to the origin…