Learner agency in urban primary schools in disadvantaged contexts: Report to Society for Educational Studies

This project aimed to develop new theoretical understanding of the nature and extent of children’s learner agency in primary education. From a sociocultural perspective, having the capacity to exercise learner agency is essential for meaning-making and therefore deep and effective learning. Existing international research suggests that children attending schools with significant intakes of children from ‘disadvantaged’ backgrounds may develop ‘passive’ and disengaged orientations to learning in response to the strong pressure on many of these schools to raise attainment. Learner agency can be defined as volitional activity which has an effect on learners’ peers and teachers, for example in terms of their understanding of a concept or phenomena. Learner agency is both constrained and enabled by sociocultural practices, including, as in this research, the modes of pedagogy used by teachers. A multiple case study design (Yin 2009) was selected to enable collection of rich data using multiple methods within and compare across different schools. Four case study schools with above national average (26.7% in 2013) proportion of pupils eligible for Free School Meals (as a proxy for ‘disadvantage’) and located in urban settings in Greater London. Data was collected in the four schools through semi-structured interviews with Year Five teachers and children and Year Five lessons were observed by the researcher as a non-participant observer, across the curriculum. All four classrooms were characterised by a mixture of competence-based and performative pedagogy, although the dominant mode varied across schools. The higher the proportion of disadvantaged children at the school, the more performative the pedagogy was.The project provides new empirical evidence about the nature and extent of children’s learner agency in disadvantaged urban primary schools; it has led to the development of theoretical understandings of learner agency in such contexts. The data suggests that learner agency is constrained and enabled in complex ways, which depend on teachers’ pedagogical practices. This extends existing research in such contexts, which has mainly focussed on children’s agency in constructing their social and learner identities and positioning as learners (e.g. Youdell 2006; Reay 2006). The study took a new theoretical approach to researching agency in disadvantaged schools, drawing on sociocultural theory to develop understandings of learner agency. The project also contributes significantly to developing sociocultural understandings of learner agency by identifying how it is constrained and enabled in relation to Bernstein’s (2000) modes of pedagogy

Conceptualising Learner Agency: A Socio-Ecological Developmental Approach.Conceptualising Learner Agency: A Socio-Ecological Developmental Approach

This paper addresses the interactions between a developing person and a changing social context shaping the acquisition of new skills and competences. It introduces a socio-ecological developmental approach for conceptualising learner agency, which is informed by expectancy-value models of human behaviour, theories of developmental regulation and ecological theories of life course development. Learner agency is understood to reflect the active and lifelong processes of inquiry, engagement and participation in the world around us. It involves the ability to act intentionally, to make things happen, to be a product as well as a producer of the social world. It is argued that learner agency is not a personality characteristic, but a relational process that emerges through interaction with others, and that its manifestations are shaped by the wider socio-cultural context. As such it is learnable and malleable through experience

We All Ascend Together: A teacher-oriented exploration into the affordances and limitations to developing learner agency in years 4-8 Aotearoa/New Zealand classrooms.

Educators and researchers agree that developing learner agency is necessary to ensure learners are prepared for a changing future. However, learner agency is not widely embedded across schools. This qualitative study identifies the key affordances and challenges of embedding learner agency from the perspective of six Aotearoa/New Zealand primary school teachers. Through semi-structured interviews and thematising of data, teachers identified what impacted their development of learner agency within their schools. Results revealed that learner agency is both afforded and challenged when stakeholders’ (leaders, teachers, learners and whānau) beliefs in learner agency are established and when there is a shared understanding of the practices required to ensure learner agency development. From there, active, powerful and reciprocal partnerships must be established between all stakeholders. Finally, all stakeholders’ roles must be positioned where power is shared. The role of leadership was especially highlighted as a key affordance and challenge to developing learner agency. It is through leadership focus and prioritising of time, resources and professional learning that practices supporting learner agency are advanced

Learning Professionals That Leverage Learner Agency as an Asynchronous Instructional Design Strategy: A Phenomenological Study

The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological study was to understand asynchronous online professional learning for adults that maximizes learner agency through non-linear instructional design strategies by the lived experiences of Learning and Development professionals. The theory guiding this study is Malcolm Knowles’ theory of andragogy, as it speaks to the unique characteristics of adult learners and is the lens by which the creation of asynchronous learning experiences that maximize learner agency can be viewed. The central research question investigates the lived experiences of learning professionals who create asynchronous online professional learning for adults that maximizes learner agency through non-linear instructional strategies. The sample for this hermeneutic phenomenological study included 11 Learning and Development professionals as participants from a corporate professional learning function at an early childhood education company. The data was collected using the following methods: semi-structured individual interviews, journal prompts, and a focus group interview. The data was analyzed by developing hierarchical codes to uncover patterns in the data and identify apparent themes and subthemes. The results of this study demonstrate that learning professionals leverage non-linear design strategies to scaffold learning, rely on strategies to delineate scope of practice and navigate obstacles, and position adult learner characteristics as the centralized focus when creating asynchronous learning for adult audiences

Teachers Engaging in Action Research to Increase Learner Agency

This study is designed to explore the perceptions of teachers in a Northwest Arkansas urban elementary school context as they engage in design-based action research to increase learner agency. It is based on the Carnegie Project on Education Doctorate (CPED) framework that includes identifying a problem of practice and engaging in research to address the problem. A problem of practice was identified in this school setting by an incoming school principal following a principal that had been in the school for many years. The new principal, also the researcher in this study, recognized that there was a low level of learner agency among both students and teachers. Students were not tracking their own learning or setting goals. Teachers had a low level of teacher efficacy and were frustrated with the low level of student achievement and the low level of student motivation. To address this problem of practice, a design-based action research study was developed by the new principal and the new leadership team. At the time that research data was collected for this qualitative study, the teachers had been engaging in action research for eight months. This study will include interview data collected from all fifteen teachers that were willing to participate including all first through six grade teachers, a self-contained special education teacher, and two interventionists that had engaged in the design-based action research to increase learner agency. This study helped determine the next steps that should be taken in the cycle of inquiry in this school and serves as a resource for educational leaders that wish to address similar problems of practice

Constraints, creativity and challenges: educators and students writing together

Australia's national curriculum calls for the prioritisation of teaching and learning in literacies. From 2013 there is also a requirement for schools to familiarise students with a broad range of literature, and teachers are required to engage children in creating plays, stories and poems in traditional and multimodal forms. Similarly, universities must prepare future teachers with a deep understanding of the creative processes involved in thinking about, writing and editing such works, with a consideration of audience and genre. Drawing upon the experiences of pre-service teachers in their co-writing with young students, the author considers how writing within literary genres may support possibility thinking, relational and dialogic pedagogies and learner agency, as well as what challenges and constraining factors may operate upon the teacher writer partnership

Curriculum projects, learner agency and young people’s fullness of life

From Wiley via Jisc Publications RouterHistory: received 2019-10-24, rev-recd 2020-03-16, accepted 2020-05-13, pub-electronic 2020-05-30, pub-print 2021-06Article version: VoRPublication status: PublishedA recent article in this journal suggests that although learner agency is central to understanding young people's engagement with the curriculum, there is little exploration of such ideas in the field. In response, they argued for an Archerian approach to learner agency and a contextually, interpersonally, intra‐personally and temporally situated curriculum that suggests the centrality of young people's educational reflexivity and associated learner agency for mediating the structural aspects of their educational lives. We reflect on this thinking through the lens of a curriculum project the design of which was similarly inspired by the work of Margaret Archer. We do so through the eyes of Grace, one of the young participants in the project. We learn from Grace that learner agency and curriculum engagement is not, as Archer's framework suggests, a substantively self‐authored reflexive endeavour that can be made amenable to change through a bespoke curriculum project. Rather learner (agency) in young people might be more accurately theorised in pragmatist terms as something embedded in the drama of the fullness of their everyday lives of which the curriculum represents just a tiny part. The implications for the field of learner agency and curriculum studies are discussed

On Language Learner Agency: A Complex Dynamic Systems Theory Perspective

Agency has attracted considerable attention, especially of late. Nevertheless, perceptions of language learners as nonagentive persist. In this article the Douglas Fir Group’s call for a transdisciplinary perspective is heeded in a Complex Dynamic Systems Theory’s (CDST) conceptualization of agency. It is suggested that CDST maintains the structureâ agency complementarity while bringing to the fore the relational and emergent nature of agency. Coordination dynamics is identified as a possible mechanism for the phylogenetic and ontogenetic emergence of agency. CDST further characterizes agency as spatiallyâ temporally situated. It can be achieved and changed through iteration and coâ adaptation. It is also multidimensional and heterarchical. In this era of posthumanism, an issue that is also taken up is whether it is only humans who have agency. The article then discusses educational practices that could support learner agency. Finally, the article closes with a discussion of agency and ethical action.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/147771/1/modl12536_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/147771/2/modl12536.pd

'The heart of what we do': policies on teaching, learning and assessment in the learning and skills sector

One of the stated aims of government policy in England is to put teaching, training,and learning at the heart of the learning and skills system. This paper provides a critical review of policies on teaching, learning and assessment in the learning and skills sector over the past five years. It draws upon data collected and analysed in the early stages of an ESRC-funded Teaching and Learning Research Programme project. Using evidence from policy sources, we argue that despite policy rhetoric about devolution of responsibility to the 'front line', the dominant 'images' that government has of putting teaching, learning and assessment at the heart of the Learning and Skills Sector involves a narrow concept of learning and skills; an idealisation of learner agency lacking an appreciation of the pivotal role of the learner/tutor relationship and a top-down view of change in which central government agencies are relied on to secure education standards

Learner agency in online task-based language learning for spoken interaction

L'objectiu d'aquest estudi és explorar la relació entre el poder de decisió i d'acció de l'alumne (learner agency), els recursos en pantalla (botons de navegació, instruccions escrites per a tasques) i la creació de significat en tasques de comunicació sincrònica mitjançant ordinador (CSMO) orientades a fomentar la interacció oral. El projecte es basa en l'estudi de casos i s'analitzen tres tasques dissenyades per a l'aprenentatge de llengua (intercanvi d'opinions, joc de rols i buits d'informació) en dos conjunts de dades (dotze casos). Es tracta d'unes tasques fetes en una universitat en línia situada a Barcelona i per a les quals es va fer servir un sistema d'audioconferència per a facilitar la interacció oral. Les dades es van recollir al llarg d'un semestre (2015) i es van analitzar juntament amb dades recollides en un estudi previ (2012). L'estudi presenta tres objectius: en primer lloc, entendre com les decisions dels alumnes i les accions deliberades pròpies dels recursos en pantalla modelen els torns de paraula; en segon lloc, entendre com la creació de significat es pot concebre amb una perspectiva multimodal, més enllà de la perspectiva lingüística; en tercer lloc, l'estudi vol ser una contribució a la teoria sobre l'agentivitat en l'aprenentatge de llengües per a fomentar l'agentivitat en les tasques CSMO d'avui dia i del futur, a fi d'aconseguir avançar d'una manera òptima en l'aprenentatge d'una llengua. S'utilitza una sèrie de fonts de dades i de mètodes. Les fonts inclouen enregistraments d'àudio d'interaccions orals entre estudiants, transcripcions, captures de pantalla, documentació de cursos de llengua i informació addicional sobre eines tecnològiques. Les dades s'analitzen per mitjà d'una anàlisi del discurs i de continguts, i d'una anàlisi del discurs mitjançat un ordinador (Herring, 2004). A més, es crea un enfocament específic que combina les perspectives analítiques èmica (alumne) i ètica (investigador), que se serveixen de l'anàlisi conversacional (Sacks, Schegloff i Jefferson, 1974) i de l'anàlisi (inter)accional multimodal (Norris, 2004). Els resultats indiquen que en les tasques es manifesten alguns tipus d'agentivitat. A més, el fet que la comunicació entre els alumnes tingui lloc per mitjà de recursos en pantalla modifica els torns de paraula tant qualitativament com quantitativament. També s'ha pogut identificar la creació de significat per mitjà de diversos instruments més enllà de la llengua (per exemple, somàtic, de text i imatge). L'agentivitat, doncs, es manifesta mitjançant sistemes humans (motor, sensorial i lingüístic) i recursos que formen part del sistema digital. Per tot això, en les tasques CSMO es pot definir l'agentivitat com el «sistema que conté accions enfocades a un o més objectius i que es desenvolupen mitjançant una o diferents eines, una definició que es basa en la noció sociocultural d'"acció enfocada a un objectiu i desenvolupada mitjançant eines" (Zinchenko, 1985). Finalment, es presenten algunes conseqüències a l'hora de dissenyar tasques i es proposen algunes recomanacions per a futures investigacions en CSMO basades en tasques amb una perspectiva multimodal.El presente estudio tiene como objetivo explorar la relación entre el poder de decisión y de acción del alumno (learner agency), los recursos basados en la pantalla (como por ejemplo, botones de navegación, instrucciones de tareas textuales) y la creación de significado en tareas de comunicación sincrónica mediada por ordenador (CSMO), desarrolladas para promover la interacción oral. Utilizando un enfoque de estudio de casos, se analizan tres tareas diseñadas para el aprendizaje de idiomas (intercambio de opinión, juego de roles y falta de información en dos conjuntos de datos (doce casos). Las tareas se llevan a cabo en una universidad en línea en Barcelona mediante una herramienta de audioconferencia para facilitar la interacción oral. Los datos se recopilaron a lo largo de un semestre, en un curso (2015) y se analizaron junto con los datos de un estudio anterior (2012). Los objetivos del estudio eran tres: en primer lugar, comprender cómo las elecciones de los alumnos y las acciones intencionales relacionadas con los recursos basados en la pantalla moldean los turnos conversacionales; en segundo lugar, comprender cómo puede entenderse la creación del significado con una perspectiva multimodal, más allá de lo lingüístico, y, en tercer lugar, contribuir a la teoría de la agentividad en el aprendizaje de idiomas. La finalidad de este último objetivo ha sido ayudar a fomentar la agentividad en las tareas actuales y futuras del CSMO, para poder avanzar de forma óptima en el aprendizaje de idiomas. Se usa una variedad de fuentes de datos y métodos. Las fuentes incluyen grabaciones de audio de interacción oral punto a punto, transcripciones, capturas de pantalla, documentación del curso, e información suplementaria sobre la herramienta tecnológica. Estas fuentes se exploran por medio del análisis de datos, incluido el análisis del contenido y del discurso, así como el análisis del discurso mediado por ordenador (Herring, 2004). Además, se desarrolla un enfoque específico que combina las perspectivas analíticas émica (alumno) y ética (investigador), que se basan en las nociones del análisis conversacional (Sacks, Schegloff y Jefferson, 1974) y el análisis (inter)accional multimodal (Norris, 2004). Los resultados sugieren que los tipos de agentividad se manifiestan en tareas. Además, la mediación de los alumnos con recursos basados en la pantalla moldea los turnos conversacionales tanto cualitativamente, como cuantitativamente. La creación de significado implica múltiples aspectos más allá del habla (por ejemplo, somático, de texto e imagen), lo que implica que puede entenderse que la agentividad se lleva a cabo por medio de sistemas humanos (motor, sensorial y de lenguaje) y de recursos pertenecientes al sistema digital. Por lo tanto, la agentividad en las tareas del CSMO puede describirse como "el sistema con acciones dirigidas a uno o más objetivos desarrolladas mediante una o más herramientas", definición que se basa en la noción sociocultural de "acción dirigida hacia un objetivo y mediada por instrumentos" (Zinchenko, 1985). Se discuten las implicaciones para el diseño de tareas y se describen recomendaciones para futuras investigaciones en CSMO basadas en tareas con una perspectiva multimodal.The present study aims to explore the relationship between learner agency, screen-based resources (such as navigational buttons and textual task instructions) and meaning making in synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) tasks developed to promote spoken interaction. Using a case-study approach, three tasks designed for language learning (opinion sharing, role play and information gap) across two data sets (12 cases in total) are analysed. Tasks are carried out in an online university in Barcelona, where spoken interaction is made possible through an audioconferencing tool. Data was collected over the course of one semester in 2015 and analysed alongside data from a prior study that took place in 2012. The objectives are threefold: to understand how learners' choices and intentional actions pertaining to screen-based resources shape oral turn-taking; to understand how meaning making can be understood from a multimodal perspective, beyond speech; and to contribute to theories on agency in language learning in order to help foster agency in current and future SCMC tasks for optimal language learning gains. A range of data sources and methods are used. Sources include audio recordings of peer-to-peer oral interaction, transcripts, screenshots, course documentation and supplementary information about the technological tool employed. These sources are explored through data analysis, including content and discourse analysis as well as computer-mediated discourse analysis (Herring, 2004). In addition, a specific approach is developed that combines emic (learner) and etic (researcher) analytical perspectives that draw on notions from conversational analysis (Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson, 1974) and multimodal (inter)actional analysis (Norris, 2004). Results suggest that different types of agency emerge during tasks. In addition, learners' mediation with screen-based resources are found to shape their oral turn-taking, both qualitatively and quantitatively. Meaning making involving multiple modes beyond speech (i.e. somatic, text and image) are identified, leading to the implication that agency can be understood as being carried out through human systems (motor, sensory and language) and resources pertaining to the digital system. Agency in SCMC tasks can therefore be described as 'systems with tool(s)-mediated, goal(s)-directed action(s)' which builds on the sociocultural notion of ¿tool-mediated, goal-directed action' (Zinchenko, 1985). Implications for task design are discussed, and recommendations for future research on task-based SCMC from a multimodal perspective are outlined