ENDLESS SPACE 2 GUIDE FROM ENDLESS SPACE FULL
Otherwise, our classrooms become places full of empty compliments. We must name what our students are doing well in order to help them identify it for themselves. But we must be specific in our positive feedback. Praising students’ journeys is a great place to start. When we embrace these quiet moments, we bear witness to student process, which is perhaps the most personalized part of learning in our classrooms.īy stepping back and supporting our students while they productively struggle, we can learn a great deal about their learning habits, praising and coaching their efforts along the way.
But when I extend my wait time and embrace quiet moments that allow students to have opportunities to think on their own, my time investment pays off in large dividends, providing me with independent learners who find they have lots of tools to overcome obstacles on their own. When I’m feeling that sense of urgency, I can’t help but intervene prematurely, act on behalf of my students, and bear the majority of the cognitive load. That sense of urgency can actually cause us to diminish learner agency. We must ask ourselves: Where does the urgency come from, and how might it be disenfranchising some of my students? But if we’re looking to cultivate learner agency, we must consider the negative effects of accelerating learning-of always asking our students to be “on” in our classrooms. In an era of learning acceleration and learning loss, it can be hard to grant ourselves permission to slow down. Providing too much voice and choice without proper scaffolds can be counterproductive, resulting in chaos in the classroom.Ĭonsider the following moves that cultivate learner agency-and choose one to try in your classroom. This isn’t as simple as some might believe. The term agency comes from the Latin agere, meaning “to set in motion.” It is precisely what agency should do in our classrooms: empower learners so that their minds and hearts become the engines that drive learning in our classrooms. It not only entails knowing our students as human beings but also requires identifying and unlearning patterns in our teaching that unknowingly engender dependence in learners. Cultivating learner agency is an endless journey.
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