By mastering the 12 foundational competencies, educators can build a solid foundation for continued growth. The competencies are a subset of those outlined in the Educator Competencies for Personalized, Learner-Centered Environments, created to empower a growing number of teachers to implement and scale up a transformation of their classrooms into places of personalized, student-centered learning. While Educator Competencies explores many areas, 12 competencies were flagged as foundational and ‘prerequisite’ to all others, including promoting student agency.
Promote student agency
Promote student agency and ownership with regard to learning
Teachers who promote student agency:
- Encourage student voice and choice in what they study and how they show mastery
- Build students’ abilities to reflect on their own learning, through goal setting, self-assessment and self-pacing
- Foster peer collaboration in the classroom
- Cultivate students’ growth mindsets
- Help students learn to manage their own behavior
- Support students’ perceptions of their own efficacy, interest and purpose
- Give students opportunities for involvement in decision-making, at the classroom and school level
Encouraging students to create curriculum is a powerful way to give them voice and choice in their learning. This video looks at the Learning Studio program in which students design and teach a course for fellow students with mentorship from a teacher. The footage highlights students teaching art and engineering courses. Schools looking to give students more opportunities to engineer their own learning could consider creation of a similar program.
Student-led conferences provide an opportunity for students to reflect on their own learning by assessing their progress and articulating their goals. This video shows an 8th grade student-led conference and features a student and his parents discussing the conference, along with commentary by expert Linda Darling-Hammond. Teachers can give students of any age ownership over conferences.
Learn more about this and other competencies, as well as how to transform classrooms into places of personalized, student-centered learning, by interacting with Educator Competencies for Personalized, Learner-Centered Environments.
