Have you ever sat bolt upright in the middle of the night – struck by some deep insight that has plagued your mind for time immemorial? Me either. But I did get struck by the blindingly obvious the other day. Most of the guff on this blog has been about one idea. Developing a theory of learner agency. That’s it – simple.
Of course, there are many examples of what learner agency is and is not. I have no interest in making exclusive claims. I do want a frame of reference to discriminate between utter rubbish and sheer brilliance. Those two things should not often hang out together. Knowing what company you are keeping is all important for a relationship to flourish. If the current notion of learner agency is going to stick around for a while, and cause learners to flourish, then we need a solid theoretical base to underscore the practices. Well, that’s my theory anyway.
So, where to then.
- A learning ecology is a thing.
- Learning ecologies possess artefacts – curated by experts.
- Learners become attuned to these artefacts in their ecology.
- They size up the affordances of the artefact.
- Then action is taken resulting in the production of more artefacts in the learning ecology.
Simple! The goal here is to throw together the theorists behind each of the concepts above. Anyone can then review a program of learning, event, project, school culture and determine if learner agency is a feature or not.
The best part of this is that there is nothing new in it. Yet it provides a lens through which kids and their grownups alike can measure their actions.