A staff meeting this week which had three teachers sharing their journey toward increasing student engagement and moving towards having a more student centred approach to learning inspired me to read more and consider what other opportunities we can offer staff to encourage more risk taking in this area.
What does student agency mean? What does it look like? I am not one for using jargon so I want to describe it in real terms that students, teachers and our parents will understand.
It's about having a student centred approach to learning, it's about gathering student voice and listening to it, it's about giving the students the power to act... but it isn't all about teachers abdicating all responsibility, it's not about just handing over all control to the students - this needs to be well planned for.
Core Education Ten Trends for 2015 list Learner Agency as one of these trends. Derek Wenmoth discusses some of the implications for schools as they move closer to providing a more agentic approach to learning.
Another article How Student Centered Is Your Classroom? written by Rebecca Alber poses some excellent reflection questions for teachers in order for them to to reflect on the learning environment they are designing for students. It's really worth a read. The last question she poses:
As the instructor, what is my "air time" each class session? How much direct instruction is there? How might I change some of that directing teaching to facilitating?
She discusses the need for there to be a blend of different teaching approaches facilitation, direct instruction, and coaching; there needs to be a balance.
I am excited that teachers at our school are taking risks and trialling different methods in the classrooms. We have teachers trialling self regulated approaches, collaborative approaches to teaching Maths; providing workshops that the students opt into when they need to; providing a must do and can do approach; trialling Daily 5 and CAFE to allow for more choice; giving the children the chance to timetable their day; giving the students the chance to have a voice in what they will learn and some flipped learning.
Most of all I am excited that our teachers are engaging in professional dialogue about this; questioning each other and supporting each other and celebrating successes along the way.
I leave this post with the parting thought that my staff members left me with after our last staff meeting.
How do you know that each and every student in your school is engaged in their learning?
Some more readings on this topic.
Are your students engaged? Don't be so sure!How can students have more say in school decisions?
Geat timely post thank you. Good to be reminded about this. I think it is important for the statement about engagement to include the words " in their learning". It is really easy to walk into a classroom and see engagement but unless we actually take the time to listen to the children talking about what they are doing we can be easily fooled into assuming they are learning. There are times when I think the engagement I think I am seeing might be more entertainment.
ReplyDeleteI think your sentence about giving students the power to act but not having teachers abdicate responsibility is the key. How do we help students develop the skills they need to become independent learners? Very exciting to be developing answers ti this question.
http://globaldigitalcitizen.org/the-best-advice-for-creating-student-centered-learning?utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=21453511&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9CXf57cP2JYTge20JNO5NfqVAGmYzKGKs2tEK-gWlGzEJI5ZeZv-9PMkI9a4YLNvF9gM1a2uyMuhJ-9PXq39LQaPrh_A&_hsmi=21453511
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting article that might add to the thinking around agency.
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