Blog Post #3: Student Agency- Mandy Irick

Blog Post #3: Student Agency

Student agency to me should be the foundational practice in every single classroom. In the past, the teacher has been responsible for instructing the students, carrying the workload, and doing all the “heavy lifting” in the classroom. Where does that leave the students? The students are just the observer, taking notes when necessary and allowing their brain to be on autopilot without real engagement. The students are the rested individuals while the teacher is exhausted from all the hard work and effort they have exerted in the lesson.  This would not be the scenario if more classroom adopted student agency in the classroom structure. Agency really refers to the fact that students are the ones who is making, creating, doing, sharing, collaborating, and publishing in ways that are meaningful to them, using real-world tools. The teacher is the facilitator or guide to continue that motivation, provide insights into misconceptions, enhance skills and promote critical thinking and analysis. A struggle facing many middle school students in the inability to analyze and apply their learning. Even in the classrooms I have taught, they seem to be afraid at first when it comes to taking the concepts and developing their own understanding of it and how to apply it in a new way. Many times they would say, “can’t you just give me the answer”, “this is too hard” or “I need more guidelines and notes”, instead of finding it exciting that they are in charge of their learning and not listening to me teach for the full sixty-five minutes. With student agency in my mind, it is almost rewiring the students’ brains to learn in a completely different but highly effective way. This approach falls in the with constructivism that is highly supported by Dewey, Piaget, Vygotsky, Bruner, and Papert  theories that in order to develop a true meaningful schema, it needs to be constructed based on active engagement ( Edtech).  Project Based Learning is different a part of this paradigm shift into the student agency approach. This was the reason GMS decided to research and implement this practice. The concern we saw with our students was the lack of agency, motivation and ability to think critically and analytically. The methods implemented in the past were not working for our current learners. PBL offered a way to not only enhance student learning but open up a fresh new way of looking at curriculum and instruction for the teachers as well. With the PBL, student agency is brought to the forefront. Teachers are able to differentiate the learning for the students while capturing their interests.  Students have to put forth effort and practice the knowledge in order to see growth. Through PBL, they learn how to tackle things differently in order to become more effective. I can see it with my own son. He made the connection in his Science PBL that they needed to be more focused and less silly and promised to apply this to his Social Studies PBL. He became self-aware that the lack of effort in one PBL influenced his grade and performance. With models like PBL, teachers can find ways to challenge the students but the students themselves also find challenges. In my genius hour, I had students who went beyond to create a challenge of designing proto-types or three different magazines geared to the same topic.  Watching student agency in the classroom is amazing because students are taking on some many different roles. With every project, they grow with confidence but are meet with excitement since each is new and different. They are really facing real world situations a learning how to hand them. The students have to learn how to find self-confidence, deal with failures, and work with different personalities that you may not agree with while trying to build those connections. Student agency build lifelong learners who an actively engage in tasks, self-reflect and learn from failures.