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Academic advising is more than helping students select courses—it's a vital educational partnership that supports student growth, development, and success. By drawing on established teaching and learning theories, advisors can better understand how students learn, make decisions, and overcome challenges. This page explores four foundational teaching and learning theories—Zone of Proximal Development, Scaffolding, Universal Design for Learning, and Backward Design—and how they can inform and enrich the advising process.
Zone of Proximal Development
Zone of Proximal Development
Watch the video to get a quick explanation of Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). When we think students seeking out advisors, they are looking for someone with more knowledge to guide them. Advisors can then work to teach students some of the skills they will need as they progress through their degree.
What are some ways you think you’ll use ZPD with students?
Scaffolding
Scaffolding
This video provides a brief overview of how scaffolding works with students. As we think about advising as teaching, we want to scaffold ideas and information for the student. We scaffold information, or if you will, build one step upon the previous one to help the student learn the processes and information to bring them to a place of independence.
Reflect on how scaffolding relates to the concepts in the ZPD Theory. How might advising use scaffolding to help students achieve their goals?
Universal Design in Learning
Universal Design in Learning
As explained in the video, the Universal Design in Learning (UDL) model aims to create inclusive learning environments that accommodate the diverse needs of all students from the start, rather than retrofitting support later. When applied to university advising, this approach transforms advising into a more accessible, equitable, and proactive system.
Consider ways that UDL can be applied to advisors' interactions with students.
Backward Design
Backward Design
The video offers a broad perspective on the backward-design model, and explains how starting with clear end goals can help the student plan a pathway to achieve those goals. Within high education, the most common goal is graduation, but there are other goals that students can have as they work their way through college.
Give some thought to the different goals students may have while in college, as well as ways advisors can help students plot a path to achieving those goals.
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