1. Learner Agency is More Than Just Choice

Jen Sigrist, Director of Educational Services at Central Rivers AEA, explains what learner agency means, what it looks like, and how we can support more learner agency in the classroom.

What is Learner Agency?

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

Beth Strike: 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 with Jen Sigrist and Jen is the director of educational services and a leading expert on future-ready practices in the state, if not the nation, really. Jen, welcome.

Jen Sigrist: Thanks, Beth. Good to be here.

Beth Strike: Awesome. So today [00:00:30] we're going to talk about learner agency and I'm really excited to dive into this topic. I think it's somewhat of a mystery really for teachers and parents alike. So first of all, can you define learner agency for us? What does it even mean?

Jen Sigrist: Yeah. Learner agency, I like to think of it even more as agents of their own learning. That kind of helped me wrap my mind around it, but it's the idea that students have both the capacity and the freedom to exercise choice [00:01:00] about what's learned and how to create their learning experiences, what takes place. Education Reimagined have really done a nice job defining that and there are lots of definitions out there, but it's really the idea that students have the ability to take that ownership of their learning, but also the freedom to do so.

Beth Strike: Okay. So interesting. So when I think about learner agency, I sort of think about engagement. So this is related to student engagement, obviously. [00:01:30] And what do you think it looks like when students are engaged in school? What are those look fors that we would think about?

Jen Sigrist: Yeah. In traditional classrooms, we used to think that engagement was just showing up and a Gallup survey would indicate that the longer a student is in school, the less engagement they actually have, even though the attendance rates may be just the same. So engagement is really the student having more than [00:02:00] just that compliant kind of attitude toward learning, that they're taking ownership of it, that they not only have the confidence to do so, but they're able to be partners in the learning process so that they have almost an intrinsic motivation to continue the learning, not just, "I'm following what my teacher says I have to do and for a grade."

Beth Strike: Okay. So it sounds like engagement kind of drops as kids get older, typically, traditionally, [00:02:30] that's what we think about. So what are some of the reasons for that beyond what you're just describing would you say?

Jen Sigrist: Well, a lot of it would be, "It's not necessarily interesting to me. And as I get older, I get a better sense of what I like, what I don't like, what I'm thinking about from my future. And I don't necessarily see how this class or this content relates to what I'm interested in." And/or, "I'm not that elementary student who will do whatever my teachers tell me. I'm starting to form my own opinions [00:03:00] and advocate a little for myself. And sometimes that looks like non-compliance, but it's also, just listening here, isn't the way I like to learn. I'd rather be reading or watching." And we just have more experiences that as we get older, we've got our own ideas about how things should go in the world. So certainly we have our own ideas about how we would all want to learn.

Beth Strike: Yeah. I can even think about that as an adult. If I have a day where I'm required to be in meetings all [00:03:30] day long and I'm sitting and listening a lot, I can just watch and sort of observe my own engagement dropping throughout the day. So I sometimes think about my own kids who I think are in a grade school system where they do a fantastic job. And I think generally most educators are doing the best they can, but it gets to be a long week if that's sort of the approach that's taken every single day. So from your perspective, what would it look like if we were to make education more engaging for students? [00:04:00] Or maybe that's not even the right question, but how can we address this? What are some thoughts?

Jen Sigrist: Yeah. Well, I think as leaders, one of the things we can do is support our teachers and celebrate when they get the kids across the bridge of learning without having to carry them, if you will. I think one of the misconceptions or one of the things we do as leaders, with the best intentions, is celebrate those teachers who work so hard and carry all the kids across the bridge like [00:04:30] the teacher did the learning, the teacher did the work. And in celebrating that, we imply that we want every teacher to do the work for the kids. And unintentionally, we're sending the message that it's about the teacher moves and the teaching and not the learning. So if we can, as leaders, really celebrate student learning and focus on student learning, then we can see [00:05:00] it's less about what the teacher does out in front, and it's more about how the teacher sets those scaffolds so that the kids can walk across that bridge.

Ultimately, success is when the student gets to the other side, ideally they get there on their own, yet you don't see all the support that the teacher provides so the student's able to do it. And certainly, we don't start off and just tell kids, "Hey, figure it out on your own and go." The art of teaching is [00:05:30] that relationship, helping kids find out what they're interested in, helping them navigate those misconceptions and those dangers that we know as parents and as teachers that they'll face. So certainly, that's what the teaching is so critical for. And yet, I think sometimes we celebrate teaching as you did all the heavy lifting, teacher, and it was kind of done to the student. So that shift in how we celebrate [00:06:00] what it is a teacher brings to the profession.

Beth Strike: So it's not, and correct me if I'm wrong, because I'm not in the classroom, so it's not so much about the teaching, it's about the conditions that the teacher is creating for the learning. And it's about giving students some choice, but we know choice isn't enough, right? It goes beyond choice. So can you talk about choice and why it's not enough?

Jen Sigrist: Yeah. Choice is a great first step. When we think about trying to have kids [00:06:30] have more ownership in their learning, just being able to offer a choice in content or a choice in how they want to learn something, a choice in how they show what they know, those are great steps that a teacher can take as they think about bringing in more learner agency into their classroom. But we also want to think about their voice, ways that they can bring in their own sense of efficacy, ways that we can have them express themselves [00:07:00] and then show leadership, moving from just compliance to more of a connected classroom is going to be louder, it's going to be full of discussion, you're going to see less of the teacher up in front. Those would all be things that we would see shifts, we would start to see in a classroom that was really around learner agency that can start with choice, but it isn't just choice alone.

Beth Strike: Perfect. All right. I think this is a great start. What else [00:07:30] would you add before we wrap up today?

Jen Sigrist: I just think this is one of those moves that could be so powerful, especially as we think about accelerating learning for kids. We feel like it's all the teacher's responsibility. And trying to do that for every student, well, it's impossible because that's individualized learning. We have to empower our students so that they can self-reflect and see what their next steps are. And that's where the engagement [00:08:00] for, especially our high school students as they start to form those opinions, take advantage of that and help them grow into those competent learners that can design learning experiences. And that's really where that social-emotional learning comes to fruition.

So I would just say, I think it's a really critical move that choice is a great way to start with it. And we really develop then these confident kids that we want for our own [00:08:30] children as much as the 25 kids in front of us, the 150 that are on our high school roster. We want them to be drivers of their own learning. So we've got to give them chances to practice that and fail in our safe spaces and learn from that. So I think learner agency is just one of those really strong practices we can start shifting towards that would make a big difference for kids.

Beth Strike: Awesome. Thanks, Jen. Thanks for this early beginning conversation about learner agency. And [00:09:00] for more, listen in to an additional podcast that we'll have for you that goes into more of the designing aspect, more, "What does it look like in the classroom? How does it impact your assessment practices?" And really goes a little bit deeper. So this has been Central Rivers AEA Learning On Demand.