Apprenticeship, Scaffolding and Situated Learning Theories

The zone of proximal development (ZPD) is a concept in educational psychology that represents the space between what a learner is capable of doing unsupported and what the learner cannot do even with support.

Instructional scaffolding is the support given to a student by an instructor throughout the learning process.

Cognitive apprenticeship is a theory that emphasizes the importance of the process in which a master of a skill teaches that skill to an apprentice.

Legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) describes how newcomers become experienced members and eventually old timers of a community of practice or collaborative project.

The apprentice perspective is an educational theory of apprenticeship concerning the process of learning through active participation in the practices of the desired skills, such as during workplace training.

Distributed scaffolding is a concept developed by Puntambekar and Kolodner in 1998 that describes an ongoing system of student support through multiple tools, activities, technologies and environments that increase student learning and performance.