Empowering Learners: A Deep Dive into Learner Agency

Introduction

In the evolving landscape of 21st-century education, learner agency emerges as a pivotal concept, deeply intertwined with students' perceptions of their own learning experiences. This article delves into the definition of learner agency, exploring its significance, components, and practical strategies for fostering it within educational settings. Learner agency is about having the power, combined with choices, to take meaningful action and see the result of those decisions. It can be thought of as a catalyst for change or transformation.

Defining Learner Agency

Learner agency is often defined as the power, combined with choices, to take meaningful action and see the result of those decisions. It signifies a shift in the ownership of learning, empowering students to take control of their educational journey. Instead of passively receiving knowledge, students with agency actively participate in setting goals, making informed learning decisions, reflecting on their progress, and adapting their strategies as they grow. It relates tightly into students’ perceptions of their own learning experiences.

The Importance of Learner Agency

The global COVID-19 pandemic revealed the growing need for greater student agency and engagement. As we rethink the future of education in a post-pandemic world, learner agency must be at the center of learning designs and learning models so that we can support students anytime, anyplace, and at any pace. Supporting learner agency improves the quality of students’ engagement in their own learning process, and help students become ready for the requirements of living in the 21st century.

Deep vs. Surface Level Learning

Deep learning necessitates ownership and individual engagement with the content. This contrasts with surface-level learning, where students may simply memorize facts without truly understanding or applying them. As Boekaerts (2016) notes, deep learning involves "the basic processing operations that describe how students react to and interact with the learning material and with people present in the learning environment in order to enhance domain-specific knowledge and skills."

The Pitfalls of Traditional Teaching

It is different to learn something than to be taught something. Being taught doesn’t necessarily mean that learning happens. It only means that the student has been present when the teaching has happened. This is a very detached view of learning, and hardly motivates students to try.

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Student perceptions of agency

Students’ perceptions of their agency can span over several categories. In formal education the tradition has been to perceive students as objects of the teaching-learning interaction, with the expectation for students to absorb the facts presented by teachers or faculty. This view of education doesn’t fit into contemporary learning theories that emphasize knowledge construction.

Components of Student Agency

Student agency encompasses several key elements:

Setting Personal Learning Goals: Students actively define what they want to achieve academically.
Making Informed Decisions: Students make smart decisions about how to learn.
Reflecting on Outcomes: Students think about what happened and change how they do things.
Adjusting Strategies: Students change their methods based on what they've learned.

Why Learner Agency Matters

Perhaps most importantly, agency helps students become confident learners who see themselves as capable of growth and change. Agency fosters a growth mindset, ownership, and accountability, empowering students to become confident, adaptable, and lifelong learners.

The Educator's Role in Fostering Agency

Educators play a vital role in creating the conditions for agency. Teachers should support growing agency in the classroom, because the ownership contributes to engaging in deep learning.

Support Student Voice: Giving students a say in their education.
Offer Flexible Learning Paths: Providing different ways to learn.
Help Students Develop Self-Awareness: Helping students understand themselves and be ready for anything.

Practical Strategies for Cultivating Learner Agency

Educators can foster student agency by adopting practical, human-centered strategies:

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Design Authentic Learning Experiences: Create projects and tasks that connect learning to students’ lives and interests.
Use Learning Pathways: Meet learners where they are by using pre-assessments and creating multiple paths to work toward mastery.
Use Student-Friendly Rubrics: Put the progression of learning in the hands of learners so they can track their progress toward mastery.
Create a Safe, Supportive Environment: Students are more willing to take risks and explore ideas when they feel respected and heard.
Establish Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs): When students understand and follow SOPs, they gain confidence and feel a stronger sense of belonging.

Building a Learner-Centered Environment

Building a learner-centered environment where students can choose how they practice and learn is an easy way to support learner agency. Students must have choices while selecting their learning resources. Researchers say that agency is about understanding what choices and resources are available (Kumpulainen et al., 2011, p.

Open Dialogue

Open dialogue can help students choose to actively engage in their own education and to become more accountable for their own learning.

Understanding Students’ Perspectives

Understanding students’ perspectives and using practices that support learners’ agency helps teachers create better teaching-learning interactions. These learner-centered interactions will improve the quality of students’ learning experiences and also their academic achievement (e.g. Reyes et al.

Standards-Based Grading and Learner Agency

Standards-based grading focuses on student proficiency on specific, measurable learning objectives, while personalized, competency-based learning emphasizes personalized learning experiences where students demonstrate mastery of broader skills and concepts. Standards-based grading can help motivate and move students through progressions of mastery instead of feeling defeated, incapable and pre-determined.

For instance, at Calabasas School in Santa Cruz, Arizona, standards-based grading has helped students understand the concept behind their grades and have the agency to engage with how to engage more deeply with the content.

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“Before when a student got a 60% or a 50%, a D or an F, they felt like, ‘I am failing.’ But now, when they get a 1, they just know they need a little bit more practice,” said Yuki Carrillo, a teacher in the Santa Cruz Valley Unified School District. “They’re still working on it, and because there are multiple opportunities to show what they’ve learned, they can do the assignment again.”

Potential Challenges and Considerations

Sometimes agency may seem negative, for example when a student decides to leave homework undone, because they are okay with a grade that is less than perfect. Sometimes students feel they belong to the school community, which makes them more compliant in learning activities, and a little bit less eager to exercise their agency.

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