Learner Agency

Preface

Early in my training as an educator, I was exposed to William Glasser’s conceptualization of basic human needs and their importance in creating a healthy educational setting. They are:

·  Belonging – Fulfilled by loving, sharing, and cooperating with others

·  Power – Fulfilled by achieving, accomplishing, and being recognized and respected

·  Freedom – Fulfilled by making choices

·  Fun – Fulfilled by laughing and playing

They resonated deeply and made sense to me. Instructional strategies and learning activities should build in ways for learners to get these needs met. The needs of freedom and power are of special note to this essay/topic:

·  Freedom – This is the need to choose how we live our lives, to express ourselves freely, and to be free from the control of others. Helping students, especially younger ones, satisfy this need does not mean giving them the freedom to do whatever they want to do. It is giving them the freedom to choose.

·  Power – The need for power is the need to feel that we are in control of our own lives. When educators give their students the message that they need to learn in ways that the teachers ultimately demand, their need for power becomes frustrated. When students are given choices, their need for power is satisfied and they gain feelings that they are responsible enough to have control over their own learning and behavior.(http://www.socialskillsplace.com/archive/0410.newsletter.html)

What is learner agency?

Learner agency is “the capability of individual human beings to make choices and act on these choices in a way that makes a difference in their lives.” As related to the needs as identified by Glasser, elements of freedom, choosing how we want to live our lives, and power, choosing what and how to learn, address learner agency.

The notion of agency as contributing to cognitive processes involved in learning comes primarily from the Piagetian notion of constructivism where knowledge is seen as “constructed” through a process of taking actions in one’s environment and making adjustments to existing knowledge structures based on the outcome of those actions. The implication is that the most transformative learning experiences will be those that are directed by the learner’s own endeavors and curiosities. (Lindgren & McDaniel, 2012)

Schwartz and Okita developed the following table to compare and contrast high versus low agency learning environments.