Scaffolding Early Mathematics in a Complex Intervention: Teachers’ use of Digital and Physical Teacher Tools to Enhance Children’s Cognition and Learning

Abstract Although digital learning tools are rapidly advancing and offer significant opportunities for enhanced education, challenges remain in optimizing early mathematics learning and supporting the development of self-regulation in young children. Teachers’ scaffolding plays a critical role in supporting this learning, but its effectiveness depends on a clear understanding of each child’s current level of understanding. This intervention project, informed by a realist evaluation perspective and focused on scaffolding, involved the co-design of a digital teacher tool that visualizes children’s learning trajectories in early mathematics and provides instructional guidance. The aim of this study is to contribute to the understanding of affordances provided by digital educational resources through the evaluation of the functionality of a teacher tool, focusing on how teachers reason about its use. Drawing on interview data and bi-weekly meetings with 23 preschool teachers, the findings provide support for the program theory and suggest that the tool supports individualized scaffolding by making children’s learning progress visible, thereby enabling instruction aligned with each child’s zone of proximal development.