One observation that has stuck with me throughout the last few months is that the pandemic has shone a light on the passivity of our students. Zaretta Hammond describes this as the difference between dependent and independent learners. When students are dependent learners, the cognitive load falls on the teachers. To get through the curriculum and stay on pace we often over scaffold the learning process, especially for learners who we consider to be behind, and often students fail to develop or use skills to solve problems and engage in the productive struggle that learning requires. As one student shared in the Youth Truth survey, “Finding the motivation to do school work was the most difficult challenge I found during distance learning. In a classroom, most of the time, you are forced to work on assignments either as a class or in a small group of friends. At home, you have to push yourself to be productive. Lacking motivation caused me to dramatically fall behind.” 

An independent learner has strategies, habits, and skills to tackle challenges. They seek resources to solve problems such as mentors, videos, books, and experiences and have the ability to navigate the challenges and persevere. Instead of creating systems that demand compliance, what if instead we take the time to model and guide students to develop skills like time management, goal setting, focus, and self-regulation to become the independent learners they need to be. 

Agency is by definition the power to act, but this doesn’t have to be misconstrued as a free for all. We all operate within constraints but we don’t have to all do things the same way to reach the intended learning targets and goals. Educators have certain expectations they are accountable for teaching and there is a variety of content and skills that we want students to learn. Within the content, there can still be opportunities for learners to have choice and to drive their own learning process based on shared goals and expectations. I love this visual from Jennifer Davis Poon in an Education Reimagined blog that defines learner agency and what students needs to be self directed and empowered learners.

Here are 5 ways you can activate learner agency, which is critical for any learning but especially important when we are teaching learners who are not in the classroom.

1:1 Mentoring

The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning  (CASEL) has 5 competencies. One of these is self management, which they define as, “The ability to successfully regulate one’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors in different situations — effectively managing stress, controlling impulses, and motivating oneself. The ability to set and work toward personal and academic goals.” These skills are foundational to learner agency.

Impulse control Stress management Self-discipline

Self-motivation Goal-setting Organizational skills

Students don’t always have these skills developed and it can prevent them from being successful, especially when they are not in  a structured classroom where they might not have the opportunity to practice them.

Mentoring and guidance is a critical component of learning in the classroom and often you can kneel up next to students, push thinking or redirect with proximity. This is not as easy but the practice is more important than ever when teaching from a distance. Prioritizing time in the schedule to meet (virtually) with students for a 1:1 check in or small group mentoring can help you connect with learners. This can be done in a virtual conference room where you can spend 15-20 minutes meeting to understand their needs and goals, while also pushing their thinking, connecting them with resources and teaching them the skills to navigate the process. This is also a perfect opportunity to just connect with learners and let them know they are valued and cared about, which often motivates people to go above and beyond. 

Passion Projects

Talk with students and see what they are interested in learning about or spending their time doing (even if it is just a small percentage of their time). Maybe they want to build a treehouse or learn to cook. Maybe they want to paint? Give kids opportunities to pick their own projects and help them set goals and check in points. This website has a great template and resources to structure a passion project.

The goal for passion projects, 20 % time, or genius hour (or whatever you want to call it) is for students to own their learning and explore their passions and questions.  But that doesn’t mean that teachers take a hands off approach to teaching during this time.  In fact, just because you aren’t providing the answers doesn’t mean you aren’t guiding and supporting the learning process. Some people think that genius hour is time to let kids do whatever they want, but according to AJ Juliani, educator, author, and genius hour guru, “The teacher has to be more active in this learning experience than anything else because students need coaching. They need to be connected to the right people. They need help on their projects. There are going to be pitfalls and failures and they need someone to say that ok and that’s what it’s all about.” Passion project and 1:1 check ins make a good pair to activate learner agency!

Choice 

We all appreciate the opportunity to make choices rather than being expected to comply. Providing choices for learners can make the learning task more fun and engaging. Based on the learning targets and goals that you have and your content, you can find ways to provide choice in how students share their learning, or choice in the content they were learning, or choice in how they learn- some powerful ways to learn about a variety of topics or to showcase what they learned could be a podcast, a video, a book, a discussion or maybe something else that learners choose. 

Allowing choice in what to learn, how to learn and demonstrating what they know is also critical and students need various levels of help in this process. One example that I have enjoyed seeing is instead of a list of problems to complete, teachers pose a complex problem and allow students to grapple with it and try out various strategies and share the process of how they solved it. Let students choose a book or articles that they want to read. Have students choose how to respond: Journal, flipgrid, draw, create a multimedia graphic. Jefferson County in Kentucky put together these choice boards that are a great place example of clear goals but various paths to get there. You don’t have to leave everything open-ended but consider how students can increasingly have a choice in the topic, the resources they choose to learn, and how they show what they know.  

Teach Someone Something

The best way to learn something is to teach it. Have your students teach someone else something and document it. This could be in person, with a friend via video or they can share it on social media with the world depending on their access and comfort level.

Some great strategies that you can also adapt for breakout room are Jigsaw where you take a part of a chapter, an article or various media and have students learn their part and teach it to the group.  Or you can use the reciprocal teaching strategy where students take turns leading discussions in small groups through 4 strategies: summarizing, question generating, clarifying, and predicting. Providing opportunities for students to teach others can help students to understand the content and provides opportunities to connect with others in a meaningful way.

Exhibition of Learning 

Like a musical production or a game, an exhibition is an opportunity to put their learning on display, invite families in, and share how and what students are learning. Just because we aren’t in school physically, doesn’t mean we can’t showcase and celebrate learning. In fact, it makes it more important that we do. Exhibitions are a critical part of a project because as the Share Your Learning website highlights:

When students know they will share their work with an audience beyond the classroom, they are motivated to make it high quality. The best exhibitions showcase work that has required students to think critically, problem-solve, and revise through multiple drafts.

Check out these awesome examples of authentic student work in the National Exhibition of Learning!

Moving From Compliance to Learner Agency

I often hear that kids aren’t motivated but I would wonder, how often are we providing the time and support to be engaged in problems worth solving that matters to our students? How might this change their motivation and perseverance in solving problems or overcoming challenges?

I often show this video as an example of the sheer joy in accomplishing goals and what’s possible when we have purpose, agency and support. 

Think about the pride and ownership that this child felt as he reached his goal. You notice the coach is pretty proud too! When we take away the challenge and ownership, we also lose the joy and motivation to persist. 

If we want learners to be motivated, we need to provide opportunities that allow them to engage in authentic tasks that foster autonomy, invite the pursuit of mastery, and intrigue them with a sense of purpose.