How to Scaffold Learner Agency

Exciting work is happening in Louisville, Kentucky. For the past few years, I’ve been collaborating with schools to build infrastructure for lab schools related to personalized learning. More to come on this in the future, but if you’re interested in learning more about these lab school processes (Spoiler alert: they don’t need to be related to personalized learning), reach out to me.

Today, students explored journaling techniques in order to increase writing production, activate schema related to financial institutions, and reflect on their learning.

One of my schools is exploring the following research question: How might we scaffold learning experiences to build learner agency?

After identifying this research question, teachers helped to generate a list of “look fors” in a staff meeting, in an effort to build an initial common understanding of what learner agency looks and sounds like in the classroom. We synthesized these ideas into an abbreviated list of six “look fors” while engaging in lab school processes:

• Students use strategies or tools that support them within their zones of proximal development (manipulatives, etc.).

• Students field questions that are appropriate to the task and developmental levels.

• Students can identify tools that are available to them for problem-solving and overcoming barriers.

• Students reflect on strengths and challenges in order to identify possible next steps for learning.

• Students make choices based on available choices.

• Students articulate various ways they can demonstrate understanding.

Our first days of enacting these lab school processes took place just a few weeks ago, with teachers engaging in both instructional rounds and lab lessons. After reflecting on a day of lab lessons and instructional rounds, our team came to the following conclusion about scaffolding learner agency: it requires cultural conditions that support learner agency; clarity via success criteria, modeling, and language supports; a nuanced knowledge of students including their learning needs and identities; and specific instructional tools and strategies that will support them within their zones of proximal development.

Cultural Conditions

Cultivating a classroom culture of student agency—and appropriately scaffolding it—requires rigorous routine building and a way of being that incentivizes learners to think and act on their own.

First and foremost, if learners are going to build agency, they need to be comfortable making decisions on their own. Inevitably, this means taking calculated risks and making mistakes. If we operate in such a way where learners’ fears overtake their ability to try new things, then we will inadvertently diminish their agency in the classroom.

On the other hand, if we embrace subtle (and also not-so-subtle) teacher moves that cultivate agency, we can build these cultural conditions where students feel both empowered and safe to make decisions on their own.

Clarity

Clarity can come in lots of ways, but it all starts with the learning target. Today’s learning target was I can explain the services that financial institutions offer. At first glance, learning targets seem to conflict with learner agency: teachers think that if we are truly learner-driven, that we will let kids chart their own paths and choose what they want to learn about.

Let’s unpack this further. If this were true, then what would be the role of a teacher? Simply to babysit and watch while kids learn what they want? No, that’s not the role of a teacher. Teachers are in the classroom because we are experts on learning: we know what to prioritize, and we know how to scaffold learning experiences appropriately. As an aside, letting kids learn about whatever they want might sound rosy in theory, but in practice, it’s unsustainable, and dare I say, not best for kids.

Especially in the youngest grades, learners need exposure to a variety of topics to help them build a dynamic schema. This schema, or their network of background knowledge, will support them later in their learning, supporting reading comprehension and otherwise providing them meaningful nodes of knowledge to which they can connect new learning experiences.

We cannot build this schema, and we cannot possibly scaffold learner agency if we don’t have clarity around what we’re teaching, and more importantly—why we are teaching it.

Clarity shows up in other ways, too. In today’s lab lesson, I was reminded of the importance of interactive modeling, a strategy from Responsive Classroom that models routines, gradually releasing them on to learners. I also modeled clarity in today’s lesson by clearly articulating how students could demonstrate their understanding of which services financial institutions offer, allowing them to either list sentences or write a paragraph.

I presented this slide to students to provide an example for how they might do their final journal, articulating what they’ve learned about banks.

Knowledge of Students

As mentioned earlier, building a rich, diverse, and dynamic schema within learners matters when building agency. Accessing this schema is also critical when planning for instruction. Because this topic was new to all learners, I knew I would need to make time for figuring out what learners already knew about financial institutions. After all, how would I scaffold their learning—or their agency—if I was unsure what they were bringing into the lesson?

In order to achieve this, I used an exploratory journal, leveraging Project Zero’s thinking routine Think-Puzzle-Explore. At the start of the lesson, students responded to the prompt: What do you know about banks and other financial institutions? To further activate their schema, they used an image from the BizTown curriculum.

Afterwards, students had about 5 minutes to journal about their background knowledge. The work samples were rich and diverse. Many students reflected on personal experiences they had with banks, but it became clear that their knowledge of banks was limited to simple deposits and withdrawals.

This sample demonstrates a class-wide trend that bank knowledge was limited to simple deposits and withdrawals.

Tools and Strategies

Once the cultural conditions are set, the learning intentions are clear, and we understand who our students are (and what background knowledge they are bringing in), we can identify tools and strategies for scaffolding their agency.

Remember: the term scaffold refers to a temporary support that will eventually be removed. If it’s permanent, it’s not a scaffold. In math, scaffolds might include manipulatives at various levels of development, like base-ten blocks, number lines, or number discs. For this lesson, I chose to use sentence frames to scaffold their learning. I also scaffolded the final response by letting students list if they felt that would help them express their understanding more effectively and efficiently. In some cases, I even dictated sentence frames for students to fill in. Without these dictations, students would not have been able to engage in the lesson. It was imperative they engage in the lesson, and therefore, the scaffold felt appropriate.

When choosing appropriate scaffolds, it’s important to consider scaffolds that are least restrictive in nature. This means that these tools and strategies remove barriers without creating more. If the scaffold creates dependence, puts a ceiling on students’ abilities, or makes learning less clear, it’s restrictive. If it makes the more independent, helps imagine more possibilities, and further clarifies what students need to do, it’s likely liberating them to learn even more than they were learning without it.

And isn’t that what this is all about: liberating kids, and helping them maximize their time in our classrooms?