Student Agency
Written by Leah LaFaver, Hickman Mills High School C.O.R.E Teacher
In my C.O.R.E. class, we give students the opportunity to choose in several different ways. Granted, we are a class with the luxury of engaging in client-connected projects as our foundation, but there are a number of ways student agency in our classroom can apply to classes where CCPs are not the primary curricular focus.
Teaching students how to take control of their own learning is a main focus of our program.
Teaching students how to take control of their own learning is a main focus of our program.
We don’t always let students choose their groups for CCPs, but we let them have a lot of ownership within their groups. We use Trello, where students learn to manage their projects. This includes assigning themselves tasks to complete and managing their group dynamic.
In my class, I use the design-thinking framework to guide CCPs. Students are empowered to decide how they will approach the different stages of a project.
For example, with the Empathy Stage, students decide how they will collect data, what and who they will ask, how they will aggregate and present their data, and ultimately how they will use it to ideate. They also decide who is in charge of what, assign each other tasks, and create their own deadlines.
The Ideation Stage of design thinking lends itself to student agency as students are free to come up with their own solutions to client problems. Students get to choose how they will present their ideas to the client, so they have ownership of the deliverable. As a group, they decide how their pitch will flow, and the different roles during the presentation.
You can also give students agency by asking for their input in the classroom.
Think of it as the teacher modeling the client and asking the students “How might we … learn about -ar verbs in another tense?” This gives them ownership of their learning as they have input into how they will learn. You could do this with a culture setting as well, as students create norms and can address a question like “How might we create a class culture where students have more agency?” You could use design thinking to help frame this process, and it can be done in a short amount of time, like one class period, or longer.
I also think that implementing design-thinking activities inherently leads to student agency, even if it’s just to practice the process. Brainswarming lets every student come to the table with their own ideas. Half-baked ideation and pitches give students a chance to practice coming up with their own ideas with low stakes, meaning they are intended to get students practicing how to come up with ideas and make choices on how to assess and decide on a final idea.
