Learner Agency is a term educators are hearing more and more about. It appears in educational policy documents around the world, and school leaders are being told the importance of creating environments that promote “Learner Agency”.
If schools are to empower this idea, it is essential that we are able to answer the following questions:
- What does Learner Agency really mean?
- Why should school leaders care about it?
- How do we support teachers to increase agency in learners
- What tools do we use to guide and measure the impact of our work?
Learner Agency relates to a student’s ability to navigate their way through life and positively impact their circumstances. It’s about ensuring they are the master, not the victim, of their circumstances, and it is about students being powerful, not powerless, in the face of adversity
It is important for educators to understand that Learner Agency is not something we can give to students. It is a capability that needs to be developed by, and within, the learner. Ultimately, learners must carry and continually build their agency throughout their life, and this highlights our second problem: that despite the various guides produced in some jurisdictions, there is a broad lack of teacher understanding of what Learner Agency is and how to effectively implement it in the classroom.
