In this month’s issue …
Opening thoughts
How do you do it, this learner agency thing?
Whispers from the frontier
Remote learning and learner agency?
Vintage innovation?
Teachers as drivers of democracy?
AI acing Uni Entrance exams in Japan?
Theory on my mind
Bevan considers whether it matters where motivation comes from.
Reading spotlight
How can the imagination be cultivated? It’s a question explored in depth in A New Culture of Learning.
Guest Writer
Katie Smith from New Plymouth Girls High highlights a book that’s had a significant impact on her practice: Powering Up Students: The Learning Power Approach to high school teaching by Guy Claxton.
Opening thoughts
How do I do it?
It’s a common question I’m asked by teachers as they venture into pedagogies that foster learner agency. The why is easy, often driven by some form of moral imperative or ‘feeling’ about what’s right and then consolidated with a deepening understanding of theory. And then lots of what to do appears - let kids follow their passions or interests; respond to the learning you see emerging; use the environment as the third teacher; shift ideas about assessment etc.
But, what about how? How do you let kids follow their passions? How do you respond to learning that’s emerging? How can the environment be used as the 3rd teacher? How can assessment be done differently?
You see, most of the strategies teachers learn and accumulate are about being in control, and for learner agency to flourish they just don’t cut it because students must be in control. But teachers can’t be left with nothing. So, instead of control, how can teachers have influence?
Hopefully this issue of The Smata Bulletin equips you with some practical ideas about how you can go about 'doing' learner agency.
Bevan.
Whispers from the frontier
Education Reimagined posted an interesting article about learner agency in a distance learning context, and make this observation:
“Shifting the locus of control over learning isn’t like releasing doves to the wild.”
Check out the what they have to say in ‘Rules or Agency? What’s in your remote learning plan?
John Spencer dives into the idea of vintage innovation, inspired by the idea that it’s a
“myth that we can convert physical classes to online classes.”
See what he means in ‘Taking distance learning away from the screen’.
Learner agency as a way to enable democratic education ideals? That’s what Chris McNutt thinks as he builds on Paulo Freire:
“What the educator does in teaching is to make it possible for the students to become themselves.”
Read more in his article called The Path to Discovery: Providing Real Choice in Schools.
Knowledge isn’t everything, especially when AI is better at it. In this TED Talk, Noriko Arai argues we need to focus education on building the human capacity to make meaning.
Theory on my mind
Does it matter where motivation comes from? After all, what really counts is getting stuff done, right, and if someone isn’t driven enough to do that, well, someone else has got to make them.
This is one of the thornier issues when handing over control of the learning to students, because control must include the power to do or not do. And not doing is scary for teachers because then kids won't achieve, they won't be seen as learning.
Peter Gray’s characteristics of play, one of which is the ability to quit, to walk away, gives us a way to start thinking deeply about this idea.
“A person who feels coerced or pressured to engage in an activity, and unable to quit, is not a player but a victim. The freedom to quit provides the foundation for all of the democratic processes that occur in social play.”
Last issue, I spotlighted John Holt’s book How Children Learn, and in it he explores the nature of coercion and its detrimental impact on learning because of its reliance on fear. His ideas are echoed here by Gray in his reference to victimhood, but also note his connection between the power to quit and democracy. Democracies function when people know how to act when there are different points of view, where life, in essence, is a negotiation, not a matter of submission or domination. What Holt and Gray seem to be saying is that without the power to free oneself from coercion, without the power to quit, what controls us are the forces and will of others. It’s a context where power, not negotiation, reigns, where the extrinsic is more important than the intrinsic.
Tim Kasser and Edward Deci explore the impact of whether motivation is intrinsic or extrinsic, and conclude it matters a lot. Proponents of self-determination theory (SDT), they argue that intrinsic goals satisfy “satisfy innate psychological needs”, whereas extrinsic ones are “are less directly satisfying of the psychological needs”. Now, one can’t be exclusively intrinsically motivated. For instance, children place demands on a parent’s time, and our puppy Pluto doesn’t wait for me to be intrinsically motivated to take him outside for a play or toilet. However, having a balance between the two is important.
“if extrinsic goals become particularly strong such that they are out of balance with intrinsic goals, then negative well-being consequences are likely to result.”
Wellbeing. For many schools this is a key part of their strategic plan. What this research suggests though is that without the power to be in control, to be intrinsically motivated, what we are likely to get are people who are unwell. And we are seeing strong evidence of this as the Covid year plays out, which you can hear in this article from the NZ Herald
“We are still expected to do the same amount of work in a smaller amount of time, which is making it difficult to achieve higher grades," she said.
Andee said there was so much pressure to keep up with schoolwork that there was no time for anything else..
…
"Because it was my last year of school, I was planning to join as much as I could, and because there was nothing this year I felt like I didn't live a full life."
Here’s a kid who wants to join in, live a full life, but can’t because all of the 'extras' have been cancelled and the pressure others are imposing on her to get grades. She’s not the only one.
I think this needs to be a point of critical reflection in schools. Just think about how assessment for qualifications (NCEA) plays out in New Zealand. Students have very little control of the process: what they must do, when they must do it, and even how what they do must ‘look’ like is controlled by others (this is the staircase of school idea, as expressed by Isabella in Issue #5). And we all know how dominant and pervasive assessment is in secondary schools. The end result is all that matters - passing those assessments; getting those credits. Whether someone is intrinsically motivated to do it or not is irrelevant. But then, when extrinsic goals are the focus, the research says …
“people for whom it is highly important to amass wealth, present an attractive image, and become popular or famous tend to report ill-being, including greater anxiety, depression, narcissism, psychosomatic symptoms, conduct disorder, and high-risk behaviors, as well as poorer self-actualization, self-esteem, vitality, and social functioning”
So, intrinsic motivation matters. It should be the default mode in which we operate, especially if we are serious about preparing people for the world in which they are to live (a democracy) and we care enough about them to want them to feel well. And so, this really is a question of what we value, and what we value is reflected through what we enable, notice and celebrate as learning. (For a list of conditions required to foster intrinsic motivation refer to this smata-note.) Kasser and Deci end on this note, which I think gives us clues as to how intrinsic motivation can be the default mode of operation
“The finding also has important implications for theories of well-being, suggesting that people seeking greater well-being would be well advised to focus on the pursuit of (a) goals involving growth, connection, and contribution rather than goals involving money, beauty, and popularity and (b) goals that are interesting and personally important to them rather than goals they feel forced or pressured to pursue.”
Perhaps being brave enough to recognise and value these things as learning is needed.
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Reading spotlight
A New Culture of Learning, by Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown is a book that resonated with me from the moment I opened it. We’re all familiar with the argument that the world is changing and becoming more complex and so education must change, but most of the responses missed the essential piece for
me: if the world was becoming more complex and demanding of creative and cooperative people, etc (you know the lines …), surely the role of the teacher needed to shift. This book clearly articulated for me what that shift was.
In essence, what this book argues for is a conceptual shift away from education being about teachers being in control of what’s taught.
“It’s time to shift our thinking from the old model of teaching to a new model of learning.”
All very easy to say, but it always comes back to how this can be done.
Well, step one, according to this book, is to consider the environment as more than a physical entity and consider it as a context. All contexts are framed, defined in some way, and they argue it’s the frame that creates the constraints necessary for imaginative thought.
"Encountering boundaries spurs the imagination to become more active in figuring out novel solutions within the constraints of the situation or context.”
Now, this isn’t an argument for strict control, but instead a pointer for how teachers can set up contexts where students are free to explore. All playgrounds operate on this principle: the playground shapes the play, but the point is the kids move on the playground in ways meaningful to them. They are not told what to do or how to do it.
So, what contexts can you create for your learners? Curriculum areas? - that’s a useful context for older learners especially. Inquiry contexts? Thematic contexts? The idea is to set up an environment that allows for passion and imagination to flourish due to the constraints that are created.
This is an interesting idea, and it runs counter to what a lot of people think when learner agency pops into their head (ie, it’s learning with no boundaries and therefore unmanageable for the teacher). But nothing is boundless, and we are always shaped by the contexts in which we find ourselves. What makes the difference is whether we can be ourselves in that context or must comply with orders about what to be and do.
Another interesting point Thomas and Seely Brown raise is the idea of the difference between tacit and explicit knowledge. The tacit is what’s felt, and often hard to explain, but is also an indication of deep knowledge. That’s reflected in the cliche, we know more than we can say, and we can say more than we can write.
(What’s the dominant mode of assessment in school?)
While important, what they argue is that a reliance on explicit knowledge - the stuff you can write - means there’s a reliance on answers in school, which inhibits the development of tacit knowledge, which happens through experience and exploration. So, they suggest the following:
“What if, for example, questions were more important than answers? What if the key to learning were not the application of techniques but their invention?”
And from here they consider inquiry learning, but make a point that cannot be stressed enough, which is that it’s tacit, not explicit knowledge that leads to rich questions because
“It relates most deeply to the associations and connections among various pieces of knowledge.”
This is true. I know I can see connections between things I know deeply and am passionate about that are often hard to express as answers (that’s why cricket analogies often pop up in my ideas about education).
Is this one of our hows? - Create learning environments that are constrained but where student passions have a place, and support students to see the connection between themselves and the context framed for them.
Guest piece
Katie Smith, from New Plymouth Girls High, can't recommend this book enough: Guy Claxton & Graham Powell, Powering up students: the learning power approach to High School
This is a book designed for secondary school teachers who want to inspire more curiosity and imagination in the classroom. Teachers who want to encourage conversation and inspire students to think, not only about what they are learning but how they learn. “Isn’t it obvious that we should be teaching our students how to design, pursue, troubleshoot, and evaluate learning for themselves?”
The beauty of this book is that it provides examples of every day classes in every day classrooms across a range of subject areas. It is practical, realistic and authentic. There is the feeling that this is a workbook; a resource to write in and re-read as you test and experiment with strategies in your classroom. You will want it by your side so that you can reference it often.
I have seen Katie excitedly share and try out the tips in this book with success, and it is becoming a go-to guide for her and the team she works with. Buy your copy now.
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