As with many things in education, the outcome achieved will be a result of all that we do. Efforts to promote and empower student agency, voice and choice certainly falls into this category. We might have the best of intentions but unless each of our messaging systems align, we are unlikely to achieve success. So where do our efforts go wrong and what else might we change so that student agency is genuinely a part of our learning environment?
It can be argued that student agency has numerous benefits for learners and communities of learners and there is evidence to support such claims. When students are given choice in their learning and are able to see that their strategic actions help them to achieve goals significant to them engagement increases. Research by Ryan & Deci shows that three factors play a role in allowing learners to become self-determined or self-regulated towards motivation. Self-determination combines two key dispositions; intrinsic motivation and self-regulation towards an activity or goal. Ryan & Deci describe a triad of factors which each play their part in the process of motivating the individual; autonomy, competence and relatedness. Central to these in regards to student agency is autonomy. "choice, acknowledgment of feelings, and opportunities for self-direction were found to enhance intrinsic motivation because they allow people a greater feeling of autonomy” (Ryan & Deci. 2000) The importance of engagement with and self-motivation towards the learning process is central to quality learning. In self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci 2000) the role of autonomy in this process is placed in equal importance to competence and feelings of safety and positive relations to educators. If our goal is intrinsic motivation for our students autonomy and ownership of the process are essential ingredients. Without ownership, the best we can hope for is ‘integrated regulation’ in which students agree with the externally set goals.
"The fullest representations of humanity show people to be curious, vital, and self-motivated. At their best, they are agentic and inspired, striving to learn; extend themselves; master new skills; and apply their talents responsibly” (Ryan & Deci. 2000)
There is a real advantage in including curiosity inducing learning and this might be best achieved through learning that incorporates choice. Our curiosity levels are likely to be much higher when we are permitted to explore ideas that we are curious about. Research by Gruber, Gelman & Ranganath reveals the power of curiosity for learning in the moment and its benefits to learning in other contexts. As reported by Jackie Gerstein of “User Generated Education”:
The study revealed three major findings. First, as expected, when people were highly curious to find out the answer to a question, they were better at learning that information. More surprising, however, was that once their curiosity was aroused, they showed better learning of entirely unrelated information that they encountered but were not necessarily curious about. Curiosity may put the brain in a state that allows it to learn and retain any kind of information, like a vortex that sucks in what you are motivated to learn, and also everything around it. Second, the investigators found that when curiosity is stimulated, there is increased activity in the brain circuit related to reward. Third, when curiosity motivated learning, there was increased activity in the hippocampus, a brain region that is important for forming new memories, as well as increased interactions between the hippocampus and the reward circuit.
For education the challenge of postnormal times is immense and yet now is not the time to advocate despair. In imagining what education might offer our students as preparation for the lives they are likely to live, by seeking an understanding of lifeworthy learning (Perkins. 2014), we see immense opportunity. Our perception of what matters in education must change. Mere factual knowledge, mimicry of methods, solving already solved problems, learning in isolation and a belief that education is a phase of our lives that terminates with graduation are ideas we must move beyond. Our children will need a sense of agency empowered by capacities required to activate or perform their intentions (Clapp et al 2017). "This entails thinking about the world not as something that unfolds separate and apart from us but as a field of action that we can potentially direct and influence” [Ritchhart. 2014 p. 77]
So we understand the value of student agency, but are we willing to commit to it? Many schools are making strong efforts to do so. Typical approaches to this include forums that bring student voice into the decision making process through the development of student representative councils with related opportunities for student leadership. When more than a tokenistic nod to student agency such student-led groups can have a significant impact. This is best achieved when the scope of discussion is not limited to matters peripheral to the core business of schools and education. Many schools are looking for unique ways to capture the voice of their student body. Surveys and questionnaires are common, and there are numerous tools designed to make capturing student voice in this manner easy. What seems more powerful is to ensure that our young people are given a seat at the table and invited to contribute.
Another common strategy is the inclusion of opportunities for student choice in regards to curriculum or the manner by which the curriculum is engaged. Students might be given the opportunity to design a personal passion project or engage in a Google inspired “Twenty percent project” where some of their time is given to learning that they design with their teachers. In some cases students are required to engage with a particular set of concepts but are given freedom as to how they will do so. As an example, students study rights and responsibilities might choose to respond through writing, film, music, art or poetry and may choose to do so individually or in collaboration with their peers. Alternatively, students might be developing a particular skill such as how to plan and deliver an oral presentation to an audience but are permitted to select the topic.
Such strategies are nice and can be valuable but the good work they do is quickly undone by our failure to include student voice in what is perhaps the most powerful messaging system, assessment. It is much less common for student voice to be included in the assessment of learning that matters most. High-stakes testing, standardised assessments and end of year evaluations are in almost all cases tightly controlled by schools or educational systems. Student voice, choice and agency have little part to play here. These assessments send to our students very clear messages about what learning matters most. Students learn that success is about knowing the correct answer and being able to provide this information correctly formatted is ultimately what opens doors for continued success. We may want our students to be problem finders, we may want them to be innovative and creative but ultimately we expect them to provide the right answer on demand.
If we are serious about students voice, choice and agency then we need to consider how these things become a part of our assessment strategy. Stiggins, Arter, Chappuis and Chappuis (2006) report that students learn best when they monitor and take responsibility for their own learning and when mechanisms are in place for students to track their own progress on learning targets and communicate their status to others. Paul Black & Dylan Wiliam describe the important place that self and peer assessment have to play in formative assessment which they define as:
Practice in a classroom is formative to the extent that evidence about student achievement is elicited, interpreted, and used by teachers, learners, or their peers, to make decisions about the next steps in instruction that are likely to be better, or better founded, than the decisions they would have taken in the absence of the evidence that was elicited. (Black & Wiliam. 1998)
Black and Wiliam offer five key strategies for effective formative assessment. Each is made more powerful when the learner is an active participant in the process.
Clarifying and sharing learning intentions (Understanding Goals) and criteria for success - (Sharing learning intentions)
Engineering effective classroom discussion, questions and learning tasks that elicit evidence of learning and allow the learner to clarify where they are with their learning - (Questioning)
Providing feedback that moves learners forward and allows the learner to understand what actions they may take as they strive to advance their learning (Feedback)
Activating students as owners of their own learning who have knowledge of what they might have done to achieve success and what they might change. Students must actively reflect upon their learning journey and plan their next steps as key players in partnerships for learning with their teachers and peers (Self-assessment)
Activating students as instructional resources for one another (Peer-assessment)
As long as assessment is something that occurs to students rather than something which occurs with students, our efforts to enhance student voice, choice and agency will be limited. Assessment is a powerful messaging system that shouts above the noise of other systems. If we hope to include our students as full partners in learning and if we wish to empower them as self-navigating life-long learners then we must allow them to be agentic assessors of their learning.
By Nigel Coutts
Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (1998), Inside the black box: Raising standards through classroom assessment, King’s College, London: School of Education.
Clapp, E., Ross, J., Oxman Ryan, J. & Tishman, S. (2017) "Maker-centered learning: empowering young people to shape their worlds”, San Francisco, Josey Bass, 225 p.
Perkins, D. (2014) “Future Wise: Educating our children for a changing world”, San Francisco, Josey-Bass, 274 p.
Ritchhart, R. (2015) "Creating cultures of thinking: The eight forces we must truly master to transform our schools”, San Francisco, Josey-Bass, 368 p.
Ryan, R. & Deci, E. (2000) "Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being”, American Psychologist, 55(1), p. 68-78.
Stiggins, R., Arter, J., Chappuis, J., & Chappuis, S. (2006). Classroom assessment for student learning—Doing it right, using it well. Portland, OR: Educational Testing Service.