Learner Agency

What is Learner Agency?

Discussions around the importance of Learner Agency in the educational process.

Beth Strike (00:08):
Hello and welcome everyone to the Central Rivers AEA, Learning on Demand Podcast. I'm Beth Strike and I'm the director of creative services and communications. I'm here today to talk with Jen Sigrist, director of educational services and a leading expert on future ready practices in the state, if not the nation really. Welcome, Jen.

Jen Sigrist (00:28):
Thanks, Beth.

Beth Strike (00:29):
All right, Jen. So today we're going to talk a little bit more about how teachers can set up more of a learner driven classroom and some of those moves that they can make to foster more of that. In a previous podcast, we talked a lot about compliance and learning and wanting students to move away from that compliance thinking and being more learner driven. So talk to us a little bit about how this works and what are some things that teachers can do.

Jen Sigrist (00:54):
That last podcast we had about the compliance mindset, that mindset really keeps kids from being fully engaged in their learning. And today we're going to get more into, as you said, that behavior not being a compliant, just focusing on compliant behavior because that's really a detractor from that independence that we want kids to take in the classroom, as we've laid out learning with and for them.
Because I was thinking about this. I was thinking about a recipe. I know you're probably a way better baker than I am. I follow the recipe because I'm that kind of chef, I need recipes. I want consistent outcomes, I want to know that if I just do X, Y and Z, I'm going to get that great cookie. So following directions has its role.
I was probably, well, I was definitely an adult. I'm not going to give you my age. I was definitely an adult when I figured out by accident, by not following the directions clearly and not adding enough flour, I found out what flour does to my chocolate chip cookies. I actually like more flour now in my recipe because I like little fluffier cookies. I had no idea.
So all along I'm making these chocolate chip cookies and I'm not really thinking about what I'm doing, I'm just following the directions to get these consistent outcomes. And that's okay, right? There are times for that. But when we think about the wonderful chefs out there, they understand and they're mixing things like I have no skill for that. But I haven't really delved into that, that learning either.
So when we think about the kinds of situations we set up for kids in classrooms, I like to think of that analogy of the recipe. Do I need consistent outcomes? Do I need to give everyone directions because I need everyone to come out with a consistent outcome? If I'm talking about getting to the cafeteria in a safe way, that may be it.
But if I'm really talking about a learning experience where I want them to understand the components, like what flour, what eggs do to a recipe, then I've got to go a little different approach. And that's really what I want to talk about today is, how can teachers have a little different approach so that students are becoming more independent in their learning and it's not all lockstep, the teacher controlling their next steps in the learning process.

Beth Strike (03:24):
We were talking at the break about that whole recipe example that you just gave and that really resonated with me because I think about how many awesome recipes or dishes would've never been created, if people would've only stuck to the steps that someone else gave them. I mean, that's how creation happens. So how do you help kids? I think a lot of it has to do probably with just making connections to things that they're interested in. And really, we talked previously in an earlier podcast about unleashing the learning and getting them connected and passionate. As a teacher, how do you do that?

Jen Sigrist (03:59):
Well, one of the things that I really feel like it's underutilized in our strategies as teachers, is to build in time for reflection. That quiet time for students to think, "Gosh, why did that work that way? Why did I put these ingredients in here? I mean, I know I like chocolate chips, but what's the rest of that for?" Just building in time for reflection and allowing students to think about what their next steps might be.
If, to keep running with this analogy. If I had this opportunity to really think about the recipe and I could think about, why salt was in my sugar cookie or my chocolate chip cookie, as well as brown sugar. I might want to do something more with that. I might want to try a recipe and leave the salt out and see how it tastes, right?
Those could be next steps and you could already see that, that would be engaging to me because I've had an opportunity to reflect on that and really think about, where do I want to take my learning? So one step a teacher can think about is just building in some reflection time.
Now, students the first time you give them reflection, they may be like, "Sweet, I can put my head down and take a little nap." No, no, no. We may need to give them some questions to prompt, but again, over time and with more practice, if you give me an opportunity to reflect, I'm going to be able to do that. And I can do that as a kindergartner, as well as a senior. That's not just a high school strategy. So that is certainly an easy to embed, got to stay with it, persevere teachers, but that's an easy strategy to build in, I think, to a unit or design.

Beth Strike (05:40):
Okay. So Jen, there's this idea of learner profiles and developing those with students around their interests and passions and how does this work? What does a teacher do?

Jen Sigrist (05:49):
Well, it's related to that reflection in that we assume kids know what they're interested in, but we may not have given them a time to really think about it. Or we may not have given them some new learning to be able to think about like, "Is that something that I'd be good at? Do I like that?" So building in a learner profile, an interest inventory, or just giving kids time to say, "This is what I like." What kinds of things do you like? And this is such the art of teaching, right?
Good teachers know what their kids like and are passionate about, but not necessarily do we give kids that time to think about it themselves and to make their own connections with it. So a learner profile is a great way to do that. There are some free things on the internet from different educational sources. So you know their quality to think about your interests, what you're passionate about. I'm just even thinking about in some of the work-based learning experiences that the state supports, there's a self-assessment about interests. So there's lots of opportunities out there for schools to take advantage of, those inventories for kids.
And all of those feed into a learner profile that says, "Okay, these are things I might be good at, I might be interested in." So that would be one way to add to that learner profile. And the other thing that I would just say as we're thinking about that, it doesn't have to be a complex software system. Certainly there are those out there as well. But it can be just this form and as long as you come back to it, every so often as a teacher, that it's not forgotten but hey, now the end of this unit, what did you learn about yourself? What are you interested in now?

Beth Strike (07:34):
Right.

Jen Sigrist (07:34):
From what we talked about, what did you notice a strength of yours that emerged? So having it brought back up. So again, this kind of relates to that reflection time but now they're really thinking about their profile as a learner. How is that growing and evolving? So that's a practice that a teacher could build in.

Beth Strike (07:51):
We'll include a reference to this in the show notes, but I know you talk about, there's a little story from a book called End of Average by Todd Rose. And I thought that was really interesting. Can you share a little bit about that?

Jen Sigrist (08:03):
That was a book that I'm sure we all have books that we're like, "Oh, that was a game changer for me. That's going to stick with me." And he opens his book with a scenario in the military about plane crashes and so they were really investigating what's going on and come to find out, they were developing planes for this average pilot. But when they actually looked at their over 1,000 pilots, none of them fit those measurements.
So their cockpits were all designed wrong for this fictitious pilot. And so they made them adjustable, flexible. It's the same reason you have adjustable car seats in our cars today. It came from that same notion, we're all different sizes. And when we build in that opportunity for flexibility, then we stop for spinning into this fictitious average thing that we have. And I've even found it with kids. Okay, this may not be your strength, which like for my son, who's like, "Okay, I'm not a good reader." Okay, well you still have to practice reading.

Beth Strike (09:05):
Right.

Jen Sigrist (09:06):
But when it comes to his interests and he's so compassionate and caring about animals and wants to learn more, that's your strength buddy. How can you use that strength to capitalize on it? And another thing that Todd talks about in his book is, the world doesn't need people to take their weaknesses and just become mediocre. They need them to build off their strengths and be extraordinary. That's when change happens in the world. And as I started having that mindset and conversation with my son, then I saw him even grow into a better reader because he was-

Beth Strike (09:40):
I was just going to say, yeah.

Jen Sigrist (09:42):
Yeah. He was choosing those things he was interested in and he sees those as his strengths and now, reading doesn't even bother him.

Beth Strike (09:49):
And the way you describe it, it's in such a genuine way. It's not coercive. It's not about tricking him into reading, it's about really opening that door through something he's passionate about. And then that naturally led to just wanting, probably to read more, to really further his own passion and interest in something.

Jen Sigrist (10:08):
Yeah.

Beth Strike (10:09):
[inaudible 00:10:09] love that.

Jen Sigrist (10:08):
Oh, and the teacher librarian at the school totally helped. She was like, "I know what you're into. Here's a whole series."

Beth Strike (10:14):
They play a key role, don't they?

Jen Sigrist (10:16):
Yeah. They certainly do. But again, it was a building off of strengths, that kind of asset mindset. So yeah, his book was just a game changer for me. And I think that mindset is something that I recommend teachers considering in this shift to having kids being more independent.

Beth Strike (10:33):
Nice. So where does goal setting play a role?

Jen Sigrist (10:36):
Oh yes. I've even found this with adults. I assumed oh, set goals, action steps, measures all the things and go. Well, that's not as easy as it sounds and we have to teach that process. So an instructional change a teacher might make is, if I have a project, also teach how to manage my time in that project, kind of back map it. So if the project is due here, each of you, what is your step that you need to do before that? When do you want to make sure it's done? Are you going to turn it in at the very last minute? Or do you want to turn it in a little early to check to make sure it got submitted? What's your review process going to be? You build all those things in to map out your time.
Kids don't just pick that up, we have to teach that. So a strategy a teacher might consider is teaching that goal setting and actions to hit a goal, you can model that yourself. Whether it's your, hey, I'm trying to set a goal of healthier eating habits. And here are my action steps I'm trying to take. Or it's that project management steps that you're going to take in order to meet a deadline. Modeling that as a teacher is a great way to teach kids about those processes. And that's of course, in any content. Any content can help kids see how adults can work through goal setting and action steps with timelines and what you're trying to work toward.

Beth Strike (12:05):
So then as a teacher, how do you measure your success? How do you know if you're doing this well? Is it that kids need you a little less, don't they?

Jen Sigrist (12:12):
Well, right.

Beth Strike (12:13):
Yeah.

Jen Sigrist (12:14):
That's a big mindset shift. So all these instructional strategies we've talked about in this series of podcasts, there's also this mindset. And we've mentioned it before, but if we keep telling teachers or keep applauding them for carrying kids across that bridge, we've done a disservice to the teacher. Really we should applaud the teacher when they get kids from one side of the bridge to the other. I mean, the kids walk across themselves. That's the success.
And having that mindset is really a shift. It's a shift as an administrator to just recognize how independent a class is, because there's all sorts of work that teacher did behind the scenes to allow that to happen. So I really encourage us to explore and support teachers shifting the mindset from carrying every kid myself to, the less they need me, the better I've done my job. Maybe parents too, I'm still teaching myself that one.

Beth Strike (13:16):
That's so hard as a parent, it's so hard. Definitely. So there's some language that teachers should avoid using and some language to start using really around this work.

Jen Sigrist (13:28):
Right.

Beth Strike (13:28):
Talk to us about that.

Jen Sigrist (13:29):
Right. If we want kids to be independent, we know that helping them learn from their mistakes. What did you learn from that attempt? What would your next step look like? Those could all be questions that would be a great way to get kids thinking about next steps and being more independent in their learning. We could see conversely, let me tell you, that's probably language we should avoid. Or, here's what you should do. Or, God, that didn't work. Ooh, that failed.
If we say that failed, but we use it in a, "What can we learn from that mistake?" That's great changing that growth mindset that failure is not the end. It's the beginning of learning. Kind of helping kids make that shift would certainly be language that I would consider.
And moving into more of that, whether you call it a coaching stance, or we're in this together, what can you use as one of your strengths to help improve this? Those more open-ended questions. And allowing kids to do things that we may be uncover like, oh, that's not the next step I would take, but you're going to have to figure that one out.

Beth Strike (14:41):
Also hard.

Jen Sigrist (14:42):
Yes.

Beth Strike (14:43):
As a teacher or a parent.

Jen Sigrist (14:43):
I know. I was going to say, "Are we connecting to this as parents?" Yes.

Beth Strike (14:46):
Yes we are.

Jen Sigrist (14:46):
Yes we are. So certainly, not in the case, it would hurt their safety, but when you know they're going to be safe but you're just, "Oh, that's not as efficient as this way." And that one happens a lot. Like, if you would just do it my way and follow my directions, you'd do it faster.

Beth Strike (15:01):
You're speaking to my soul right now.

Jen Sigrist (15:02):
Yeah. That's tough. It's tough.

Beth Strike (15:05):
My kids would tell you. Yes. Good point. All right. Anything else on this Jen before we start to wrap up?

Jen Sigrist (15:11):
No, I'm thankful that there are teachers willing to consider how they can help kids be more independent. And really that's a much more engaging environment, even if it's a little more scary for us as adults. They'll learn deeper, the lessons will stick with them much longer and you're really going to see this engaged student that's asking questions and uncovering answers.

Beth Strike (15:38):
Nice. I love these little snack size sessions we have. This is fun.

Jen Sigrist (15:42):
Yeah. And then we're taking all these parent little tips away too.

Beth Strike (15:45):
Yeah. Great tips to take home too. All right. Well, thanks Jen. This has been great. And this was another Learning on Demand Podcast.