Learner Agency: Refocus or Change Your Lens on How You View Student Engagement

 Here I go again...writing about the importance of student engagement. However, over the past few months, I have began looking at student engagement through a different lens or at least I have refocused my lens.  As I dive into Personalized Learning,  it is no longer simply about creating activities that engage our students...it is about Learner Agency. What is the difference? 

In the traditional sense, student engagement still falls back on the teacher. How we lead our classrooms. How we as teachers design our lessons. What activities we provide for our students. Sounds exhausting right? We can have high student engagement in a teacher-centered culture but the learning falls back on the teacher. 

Learner Agency though is a paradigm shift. First, consider changing your vocabulary from student to learner. Rather than considering yourself as the teacher, consider yourself the learning facilitator and ask yourself, "How can I empower learners to take charge of and be responsible for their own learning?" Shift and refocus your lens and begin to transform your classroom or building. The Aurora Institute has a definition for personalized learning and when I think of Learner Agency, I always seem to come back to the first part of their definition:

"Learners are empowered daily to make important decisions about their learning experiences, how they will create and apply knowledge, and how they will demonstrate their learning."

Take a look at the chart below from Barbara Bray and Kathleen McClaskey with the graphic by Sylvia Duckworth. Look at the transfer from a teacher-centered high student engagement culture to a Learner-Driven culture of Learner Agency. I think this best illustrates the difference between student-engagement and Learner Agency. While I would be thrilled to have my own son in the classroom where he is a participant and co-designer: The thought of him being able to advocate and create his own learning...I love it. As a parent or guardian, you would probably be thrilled with the classroom described on the right as well yet look at the difference. Our learners can go from a participant of learning to a creator of their own learning pathway.

This is a paradigm shift for me...I have been an advocate for increased student engagement for as long as I can remember, "We have to engage our students in their learning through meaningful activities" Now, with this transformation, "We have to empower our learners to create the learning experiences they want around their interests and allow them to have learner agency to be the problem solvers of today...not tomorrow, but today". I believe it was Sir Ken Robinson in one of his videos that discussed how the majority of students enter Kdg scoring as gifted thinkers (don't quote me on this but he stated something along these lines) yet this number decreases over time...We essentially teach the creativity out of them. We put them on the assembly line of education and they forget how to think for themselves. We need to change that. So here is my challenge to you as a newly anointed Learning Facilitator or Learning Leader:

What is one thing you can do to move from the teacher-centered classroom to a learner centered classroom next week? My challenge to you is to take three one-hour blocks next week and post these questions on day 1:

What is an issue that needs resolved in our classroom?

What is an issue within our school?

What is an issue within our community?

Directions to your Learners:

Given one of the questions above, identify and create a proposal for how your group would address the issue and prepare a presentation. You have 3 hours over the course of this week. If you need extra time, see me and we can arrange for a working lunch (I am guessing that you will have a group or two voluntarily come spend extra time on their problem...how many would do that to complete a center or worksheet). You will present your proposed solutions next week to either our class, our principal, or a city official. This plan is your preliminary plan and after receiving feedback/input from your presentation, you will have time to revisit your proposal and include input from our audience. 

Set the parameters for the expectations of a set of standards you want students to incorporate...possibly writing or maybe there are some social studies standards around citizenship, find them and find what works for you. Give them the deadline much like we face in our lives and then set them free. (At this point, I envision many teachers having a panic attack and beginning the old "Yeah but" game.) Get over it and take a risk. If it doesn't work, blame me and tell your principal you followed some crazy guy on twitter talking about Utopia where kids actually wanted to be in your classroom for something besides the candy jar or suckers you give out as rewards. You tried it and it bombed.

 Better yet, collaborate and allow your learners to plan the next activity after reflecting and facilitate them designing the next Learner-Driven activity. You will probably find out they need supports in collaboration and effective teaming, time-management, etc... Why? Because they have sat around waiting on us to play the role of teacher all their lives.

This first time...It is going to be messy. Bray and McClaskey (2017)  even point this out, 

    "When learners are in the flow, this is called 'messy learning'. There is no way to capture 

    what it might look like...This is when learners are pursuing their interests, are curious, and are             seeking what they are passionate about. You can hear it in their voices and actions." (p. 45)

Who am I kidding, get use to it. Learning should be messy. Get comfortable being messy, but also be ready to ignite the fire in your students. In my experience, it is often our most reluctant learners who thrive in an experience where they don't have to "play school". Sure, there are going to be bumps along the way. Maybe your learners are not prepared to work in collaborative groups. If that is the case, consider checking out the free site, Start SOLE. SOLE stands for Student Organized Learning Environment and there are so many great resources to help organize your learning environment...or better yet, ask your kids to develop their own rubric on what a good teammate looks like and what it looks like to collaborate effectively. SOLE will get you started though.

If you would like, I have included a link to a survey that your learners can complete at the end of this learning experience. Learner Experience Survey Please feel free to copy the survey and collect your own data. When we empower our learners and they take ownership of their learning, a lot of the issues we complain about in a traditional setting will quickly go away. Yes, it is messy and it looks different, but so do the careers of tomorrow. Isn't it time we change how we engage our learners?

Here is the great thing about technology though, If you would like to connect and collaborate before you jump all in on learner agency, please feel free to reach out to me and we can schedule a virtual meeting and walk through the details together. As a personalized learning specialist for Ohio, I would be happy to connect with you regardless of whether you are in Ohio or California and we can learn together. A zipcode should not determine whether we can collaborate or not. My next suggestion to you would be to consider joining the Leading Change PLC where you can gather with other status quo disruptors looking to transform their classrooms and schools. It is a safe place for you to find supports and grow your professional tool box. Click on the link below.

Join the Leading Change PLC

In closing, let's refocus our lens on how we engage learners. Rather than allowing our learners to sit back and wait, let's transform our classrooms and schools into learner driven environments where we find the passion in our learners and we run with it.

I appreciate you taking the time to read my ramblings. Obviously, I am going to the extreme and I love our schools and our teachers. I just feel as a system, we can do better and if I can get help a teacher or leader to refocus their lens and transform to become that lone nut and create a movement, then so be it.

If you want to connect, we can do so in the old Twitterverse. You can find me at https://twitter.com/CMill_STEMguy. or in the Leading Change PLC. My passions are Learner Agency (I have refocused my own lens), STEM, and creating new opportunities for our learners. 

References

Bray, B., McClaskey, K. (2017). How to personalize learning: A practical guide for getting 

    started and going deeper. Corwin: Thousand Oaks, California.