Can student agency improve students' attitude towards learning?
Can student agency improve students' attitude towards learning?
Students often find school a controlling and constraining experience. Students have no choice over what they learn at school and for many students much of what they are taught seems completely irrelevant to their lives and their futures. As a maths teacher, I’m very familiar with questions like "why are we doing this?" or "what is the point of this?" etc. I always struggle with these questions because the answer is often that the actual content will be useless to 99% of students beyond their GCSE. It’s difficult to convince a student that knowing how to use a compass will be beneficial in adulthood or that algebraic reasoning is a useful life skill.
It’s not just what children learn that is controlled though. In recent
years, the UK has seen a shift towards traditional authoritarian schooling.
Students are told when they must work, when they eat, when they can take
breaks, what they have to do independently at home, what they can wear, where
they sit, how many of each lesson they have, how they are taught, how they are
assessed, the rules of the classroom and so on. Indeed, beyond what are often
very insignificant and tokenistic efforts to encourage student democracy (for
example, student councils, prefects or head students), most students have
virtually no control over their own education. We have, as educators, assumed
that they would misuse any power delegated to them and that they will do better
through the control of the teacher. We have deprived students of agency in what
is, for many, a highly formative period in their lives.
As students become less able to take ownership of their learning,
they become less resilient, less engaged, less likely to ask for help and less
able to identify what they need to do to improve. Indeed, one study has
gone so far as to say that this is "the other attainment gap."
(Connolly, 2013, p. 1029)
In the last two decades, many academics have proposed giving students greater ownership in education arguing that it can dramatically impact a student’s "awareness... of how they learn and what motivates them" (Pedder and McIntyre, 2006, p. 149) by allowing them to become more reflective whilst also allowing teachers to better develop their practice to suit the needs of their pupils. For generations, there have been forerunners of this in the UK, most famously Summerhill which runs as a fully democratised school with all decisions about the school taken by the student body. Researchers argue that these measures better prepare students for university and the real world where they are expected to be proactive rather than being micromanaged. Studies have shown that agency is a vital part of being a good democratic citizen, through things like protests, campaigning, party membership, petitions, unions etc. Indeed teaching a democratic curriculum is now statutory Nordic countries.
Action Research
Based on this research, I designed an intervention
that would seek to give students opportunities to reflect and take greater
ownership of their learning. This ran from the return to school in March 2021
to the end of May 2021. I chose a low attaining year 9 class where 63% of students
are pupil premium. I have found that lower attaining students particularly
struggle to reflect and often find school a constraining experience. On top of
this, I found that schools find that lower attaining students are often
the students who struggle most at reflecting.
The intervention comprised of meetings which I conducted with each
student where students would articulate their needs and set their own targets.
The aim of this was that students would become better at identifying their
needs and understanding how to address these needs themselves. This would be
followed by a student conference to allow pupils the opportunity to be
included in a conversation about the class’ and their own progress (Deakin,
Kupmick, 2018, pp. 516-517). This also included a self-assessment where
students decided to what extent they were achieving their targets and why this
was. This informed a second cycle of meetings that began at the start of the
Summer Term, followed by a final conference and self-assessment concluding the
intervention after the first four weeks of term.
The Intervention
I met with all 21 students in the class over a period of two weeks
with each meeting lasting between 5-15 minutes. I began each meeting by
explaining that as they get older, they are expected to take greater ownership
of their learning and that reflecting has been shown by research to have
dramatic impacts on attainment. I then asked them how they thought they had
progressed this year and how they could further improve. Based on these intuitions
they created SMART targets that gave their reflection a structured action with
which to move forward as suggested by Waite, Lawson and Bromfield (2009, p.
118). It was vital these targets be decided by the students so that they
reflected on their practice (Stefanou, Perencevich, DiCintio, Turer, 2004, pp.
98), and took ownership of their learning. Further, it has been shown that
students are much more likely to achieve goals when they want to achieve them
(Hattie and Timperley, 2007, p. 89). I tried not to suggest targets or push
them in a specific direction, but scaffolded them where necessary by suggesting
actions that might help them to achieve their targets, as advised by Jarvis
(2002, pp. 31-32). If a student was unable to suggest a target, then I would go
through some of the other things that other students were doing. This was
suboptimal in terms of giving them agency but I hoped that it could give them a
platform to start reflecting on their practice so that by the time of the
second meeting, they would be able to take greater ownership. While I supported
them in terms of providing resources to help them complete their targets, I
told them it was up to them to self-monitor them.
Examples of students'
action plans
The majority of students were also unable to articulate where they
had improved and what they needed to work on. Many of these students answered
the latter question by saying “focus”, “concentrate” or “not get distracted”. I
believe this was parroting buzzwords that teachers had told them rather than
explicitly explaining what they are doing wrong or how they could improve.
These students often struggled to articulate a target demonstrating that they
were unable to reflect on their practice or take ownership of their own learning.
However, the majority of the class did value the process of the intervention
and while they struggled to create their own targets were clearly positively
engaging in the process. Many really valued that they were getting one on one
time with me and that we were just talking about them.
After 2-4 weeks to work on their targets, we held our
student conference. Most of the students took this seriously and when they concluded
their discussion, I gave my own reflection to model good practice and give feedback.
I also took feedback from them, the main issue raised being our consequences
system. What was interesting with this issue is that they did not ask me not to
give out consequences, but to be clearer and more consistent by doing things
like reminding them of who had a detention at the end of the lesson. They also
suggested the use of more engaging activities and the use of real-world
examples. After they had finished, I summarised their suggestions to show that
they were influencing the learning and that I had taken on the advice. I then
modelled their suggestion of reminding students of their consequences at the
end of their lesson to show I had reflected on their feedback.
The students then self-assessed their progress towards their
target and wrote what their next steps might be. I found that some
students who had previously been quite inarticulate were able to express
themselves better and, while this wasn’t the case for all the students, this
was very positive to see. I also found that the students were honest about
whether they were achieving their targets and this was also pleasing as it
meant they were assessing and reflecting on their performance. Overall, the data showed that most targets were being worked towards (58%)
while a large number had been achieved (25%) and less were not achieved at all
(16%).
These self-assessments informed the next set of meetings which
took place at the start of the Summer Term. Where targets were achieved, I
would suggest that we pick a new target and where they were working towards a
target, I would discuss with students how they could be achieved. When targets
were unachieved, I would ask why this was the case and whether it was worth
continuing to pursue the target or decide on a new one. These targets were
then assessed after a further three weeks.
Second round of student targets
Second round of self-assessments
Results
I found that many students were still weak at reflecting and this
perhaps means that longer term intervention is required to improve their
reflection skills. Many students still needed scaffolding to support them or
still did not value the process. However, the targets they did make tended to
be more achievable and were often more about an action that they could take
themselves rather than something that I would support them with. I noticed that
the number of students who were reflecting well and accurately identifying
their needs had increased with six more students showing these skills
This is reflected in the data in that the percentage of the
targets that were to do with concentration was down 9% and those to do with
engagement down 8.4% and this reflects that more students were actively
thinking about what prevented them from doing well in class rather than
repeating buzzwords as they had done previously. More students were accurately
identifying that their progress was hampered because they were displaying
disruptive behaviours in class and this was reflected in a 22% increase in the
number of targets that focussed on behaviour. The most positive piece of data
that came out of the meetings was that, while in the first set of targets none
of the students had identified asking for help as a way of improving, this made
up 25% of the targets in the second set of meetings. This
supports Bonnet, Yuill and Carr’s research that found that by developing their
agency, students are more likely to seek help when they need it (2017, p.
17).
The data reflects that students were performing better at
completing their targets with an increase of 7% in the number who rated
themselves achieving, 7% for those who rated themselves as working towards, while
targets were rated as not achieving went down by 10%. There were several
individuals who I had found had dramatically improved in terms of the way they
were working and the work they were producing. I also found that students were
working more collaboratively and asking more questions. That is not to say that
the class had all improved and there were still students who struggled to
reflect or to act on their targets. I do think that the class has a more positive
learning environment and the green shoots of improvement in the success of the
targets points to the potential benefits of longer-term intervention.
One of the main limitations of the intervention was its scope and
longevity. Many of the studies around giving students more ownership emphasize
whole school change to create a culture of reflection and
agency. Stefanou, Perencevich, Dicintio and Turer (2004, p. 100) have
urged a move to a less authoritarian school system which offers students more
autonomy and makes them “co–decision makers” in their education. In order
for the students to take ownership of their learning at school they needed to
be encouraged to not just in mathematics but across the curriculum so that they
are given more opportunities to develop their reflective skills and agency. A
holistic approach would allow for more significant changes in practice like
allowing students to decide classroom expectations and to make more impactful
choices about the curriculum and the way they are taught. This would emphasise
that students need to be active to succeed in their education rather than being
passive learners. It would encourage more collaboration and greater thinking
about teaching and pedagogy which would allow students to become better teachers.
In this way a democratic learning community like the Swedish model (Ayton,
2012, p. 128) could be achieved and its impact could be great if the school’s
vision was clear and supported by its staff.
Conclusion
While my results do not conclusively prove the benefits of giving students more agency, I found that it did have a positive impact on the class and showed the green shoots of what giving students greater ownership of their learning can have. Most importantly, it exposes the negative impact of the authoritarian model of controlling the educational experience on students leaving them unable to reflect or identify their own needs. If we are to expect students, for whom subjects like mathematics do not come naturally, to engage actively in their learning then we need to give them opportunities to take ownership of their learning. This would help students to become better learners, raise their attainment and help them as democratic citizens when they leave school.
Recommendations
Based on these results I have the following recommendations
For classroom teachers:
- Be more open in your practice- explain why you are teaching in a certain way e.g. what is the benefit of AfL
- Offer students regular opportunities to reflect on their practice as learners (not just in terms of attainment) to promote a growth mindset
- With students who are stagnating give them an opportunity to set their own targets so that they can take more ownership of their learning
- Look for opportunities to give students agency e.g. ask for feedback from them, let them decide what they are going to revise etc.
- Arrange half termly meetings with your tutees where they can set targets to help them develop as learners
For middle leaders:
- Encourage the democratisation of your curriculum, prioritise student voice and offer opportunities for students to influence how they lear
For senior leaders:
- Through incremental change democratise the school experience
- Give students more responsibility in their learning experience beyond tokenistic gestures, e.g. students setting expectations, forums on major decisions about the future of the school, involving students in the running of the school
- Signal the benefit of democratic practices and student agency
- Move away from authoritarian model taking the examples such as the Swedish model or democratic schools in the uk
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