Four quick tips for building student agency in the classroom

Creating student agency doesn’t happen overnight, but there are simple practices you can adopt to refine your approach.

1. Set clear expectations for autonomy and how you’ll check in with students. Teacher clarity is key, and it’s easier for students to engage when they know what is and isn’t going to work.

2. Make sure students understand why they’re learning what they’re learning. “Because it’s going to be on the test” is the wrong answer here! Consider how you’re presenting big ideas in your lesson planning. Do your students know how it will connect to their daily lives? Are they clear on where the learning path is going? Engagement in climate change provides the perfect opportunity.

3. Use formative conversation starters to build student agency within content areas. Too often in mathematics or language classrooms, and other disciplines where the amount of content to cover and master is steep, we just push students to plow through the content. When we do this, we miss critical opportunities to engage and ignite a sense of open-ended possibility that is at the heart of the important content we teach. For example, developing a question-and-answer strategy in your classroom that is primarily used to reveal students’ thinking about a topic or concept, with the purpose of guiding your next instructional moves, will help you and your students move agency and understanding forward dramatically.

4. Share what works for you with your colleagues. When we share our practice with our colleagues, when we calibrate and plan intentionally to maximise the impact of our lessons, units, and daily teaching practices, student growth and mastery move in big ways. This is even more critical when it comes to developing student agency; when we align—when we, as teachers, lean in together to set the conditions, practices, and protocols for student agency—students have a more coherent learning experience that reinforces the types of agency, efficacy, and empowerment that every student needs and deserves.