Laura K Spencer, Ed.D.

Tag: agency

  • Slow Down

    Slow Down

    Three school site primary teacher teams have been spending the past two months digging into agency and personalization. What is it? Why is it important? And what do I need to do to provide it for students?

    Each group was tasked with presenting an overview of what they had learned, using the Zoom Panel guidelines from Making Learning Visible as a template. The basic elements of the presentation included:

    • Overarching question
    • Context to set the stage
    • Zoom In – artifacts that document the learning journey
    • Zoom Out – findings and implications for further discovery

    Each group approached the concepts of agency and personalization differently, and yet, their overall learnings all centered on a theme.

    Slow down.

    No matter what the learning target was, each team shared a need to slow down and make sure that students understand the WHY behind the activities. The WHY being the learning target behind the activity.

    Cult of Speed

    Carl Honoré says that society is caught up in the “Cult of Speed” and this can certainly be seen in education. High stakes accountability has resulted in a sort of checking off of standards as the new finish line. We talk career and college readiness, but do we mean it?

    When accountability becomes the focus, the WHY gets lost in the shuffle. Seth Godin, in his blog post “Accountability vs Responsibility,” sums it up perfectly.

    Accountability is done to you. It’s done by the industrial system, by those that want to create blame.
    Responsibility is done by you. It’s voluntary. You can take as much of it as you want.

    Seth Godin, “Accountability vs Responsibility”

    Accountability to Responsibility

    When we switch from accountability to responsibility, students are able to exhibit agency. They learn the WHY, and this then provides the foundation for the WHAT and the HOW.

    • Why is it important that I learn this skill/content?
    • Why is this activity important to my learning journey?
    • Why is my choice in flexible seating important to the task I am working on at this moment?

    Each of these questions is important. And each requires a deliberate slowing down of the content madness so that students are able to understand, connect, and take responsibility for their own unique learning experience.

    “The great benefit of slowing down is reclaiming the time and tranquility to make meaningful connections–with people, with culture, with work, with nature, with our own bodies and minds” 

    ― Carl Honoré, In Praise of Slowness: Challenging the Cult of Speed

    Intention

    When the WHY is owned by both the student and the teacher, then the WHAT and the HOW have INTENTION. When the WHAT and the HOW have intention, great learning happens.

  • Exploring Agency & Personalization

    For the past few months, I’ve had the pleasure of working alongside our county office’s Assessment, Accountability, and Evaluation Unit, as well as some of our teachers, to better understand the principles of agency and personalization. As these are key elements of our district’s vision and mission, it is important to be able to articulate what those principles are, how they manifest in an elementary school classroom, and what impact they have on student learning. 

    To dive deeper in to these principles, I have been meeting with three teacher hubs to further explore the principles of agency and personalization. Hubs consist of a grade level team at a school site that meet weekly around this topic. By participating in a cycle of Plan, Do, Study, Act, teachers dig in to better understand how the principle they are focused on is developed in, and impacts, their students.

    For example, a hub studying student agency might ask:

    What is agency? What impact does it have on DMUSD students? What do we want to accomplish?

    What common activities will we engage students in to increase agency?

    How will we communicate the work, results, and resources to stakeholders?

    How will we measure agency?

    Each teacher hub meets weekly for approximately 6-8 weeks. During these meetings, teachers discuss articles read on the topic, ideate methods to bring these principles to life in the classroom, and after prototyping those ideas with students, time is spent reflecting and refining the idea. This cycle is repeated as many times as needed in order to gain a deeper understanding of the principle.

    Personalization Brainstorming
    This is an example of our initial ideation as to ways we personalize in an elementary classroom.

    In January, the three hubs will convene together to share their findings with each other. Their findings will be documented and passed along to new hubs. The new hubs will then analyze the findings of the group and expand on it within their own time together as a hub cycle. 

    This is part of a developmental evaluation approach, which is much like the R&D process private sector product development teams use. It allows us to provide feedback about how a major systems change is unfolding; generate evidence for how an innovation may need to change or adapt before taken to scale; and then spreading the resulting ideas/knowledge to have a broader impact.

    The idea is that, as the hubs expand, we will reach consensus as to what these principles mean for our students and can then provide districtwide professional learning so that all students, and all teachers, have a common vision and plan moving forward. It’s been an amazing experience to join these teachers on a learning journey. I’m excited to see the results.