In secondary constructivist education, scaffolding refers to the building of new knowledge on top of old knowledge. This old knowledge not only refers to what students learned in previous grades, but also what they've learned outside of school through personal, non-school activities, such as sports, family interactions, or summer jobs. For example, in an English class, many middle and high school teachers will start out the fall semester by asking students to write a story or essay about their experiences the past summer. Students rely upon their past knowledge as source material as they build new knowledge about written composition.
In addition to relying upon old experiences, constructivist instruction in secondary schools requires students to solve problems through hands-on learning, thus building upon their experience and expanding those experiences so they can rely upon them in future learning situations. For example, in a math class, middle and high school students might be tasked with using math to solve an everyday problem at home, such as calculating how to split a check and tip at a restaurant or even figuring out how interest compounds over a fixed period for a home mortgage or student loan.
A central tenet of constructivism is that students build knowledge in groups, rather than in isolation. Consequently, grouping becomes an essential component of a constructivist education in middle and high schools. For example, in a history class, a teacher could put students into small discussion groups to analyze a primary document. Similarly, many middle and high school science teachers form lab groups in biology and chemistry classes in which students work together to observe and hypothesize about some biological or chemical experiment.
Another essential component in students’ ability to build knowledge emerges from their ability to reflect upon the various educational tasks they've completed over the course of a lesson or unit. In middle and high school classes, this can be accomplished at the end of a lesson or day by having students respond to a reflective prompt, such as “What did you do today? Why did you do it? What did you learn?” Students can then share their responses to the prompt as a way to “wrap up” the day’s activities.