Agency and perspective

For the final week of #el30 I would like to consider some of what Stephen Downes presents in his intro to the topic of Agency (below in blue). These initial words sparked so much in me, that they were catalyst enough for a post. My thoughts are interspersed with bits from Stephen’s intro (in blue) and ideas presented by Sylvia Baldiris and Jutta Triveranus, his guests for the week’s hour-long video chat.

In Stephen’s intro he asks:

How do we ensure that what we project to the world is what we want to project, both as teachers and learners? 

I’d like to turn this on its head. How do we ensure what we project is receivable? Just as there is no one way to teach or learn, when we project, can this be received? Let’s think literally. Humour me with a metaphor: A projection, of a film can be seen. Can be seen by all seated in a theatre. Can be seen by those in the theatre if the lights are off. You can’t see it from the street. Seeing requires certain conditions and the same is true of any projection. Receiving is one step further along the line of engagement.

For me, the ‘what’ of the projection is the basics, and in considering agency, there is a need to not only project but to also consider (and I mean actively) the conditions that facilitate and enable people to receive and act upon what is projected. That is part of being a teacher. In the #el30 conversation with Stephen aired 18 Dec 2018, Jutta speaks of the student accounts of a change of perspective as students’ sense of agency, self-worth, and metacognition as they learn new things. Stephen asks about and acknowledges that there is a process to going from nothing to a place where people can have and act upon agency.

Stephen goes on to say:

What we learn, and what makes learning successful, depends on why we learn. These in turn are determined by these four elements [security, identity, voice and opportunity]…
Learning therefore demands more than just the transmission or creation of knowledge – it requires the development of a capacity to define and instantiate each of these four elements for ourselves. Our tools for learning will need to emphasize and promote individual agency as much as they need to develop the tools and capacities needed to support social, political and economic development.

Absolutely. Thank you Stephen. I would like to add two important things to your list: self-efficacy and desire. Self-efficacy is a personal sense of belief and capability and desire as a word has been chosen for its strength, over the more insipid blanket of motivation.

Jutta supported this saying ‘motivation can’t be formulaic, can’t be globally supplied. It needs to fit the particular scenario the youth find themselves in…’. For me these are the foundations that are required before someone can engage in effective agency-led learning. (yes, we can do the tick-box style with little belief of care, but I’m not really interested in that sort of learning.)

Jutta presented three dimensions of inclusive design

as perspectives to take when thinking about creating learning situations. These would also apply and be valuable to consider for any creative or creating process:

1. Uniqueness – one size fits one. We are each unique and we cannot create one solution for a diverse set of users.
2. Create a process that is inclusive. Those excluded tend to be consumers and not producers. All people need to be invited and enabled to be producers from design to implementation. The most diverse perspectives are often the most creative.
3. No design decision is made in isolation. (<– think of Bandura’s triadic reciprocity of human interaction where there are personal, behavioural, and environmental factors- at the simplest level)

These aren’t answers, but principles for every person who calls themselves an educator. They will challenge you (and me) to use, as there will always be weak moments when we might prefer to just tell, or set the rules, or cut a corner, but the learning and discovery process is so much more rich for all involved if we do take on these perspectives. They certainly keep the teachers learning. If you are a teacher and lead the same course in another iteration with a different cohort, it should not be the same.

Stephen’s intro to the topic of agency has one  more paragraph I would like to address.

It is difficult to imagine a world in which education is not solely about knowledge and skills. But as we transform our understanding of learners from social and economic units to fully realized developers and sustainers of the community as a whole, it becomes clear that education must focus on the tools and capacities for agency along with the knowledge, culture and skills that sustain them.

I have to disagree. I cannot image something called ‘education’ that is just about knowledge and skills. Knowledge, skills, tick boxes, people as statistics – that’s not about learning or agency – sounds like a factory to me. When we learn, truly learn, we cross a line that makes us difficult to label. I hope that each of my students is completely different.

The idea of ‘knowledge and skills alone’ makes me think of pieces of a puzzle in a box. It’s all there, the whole thing, all the parts.

BUT there is no way the pieces on their own represent anything of use. Agency is everything, and it cannot be enacted without a basic desire to put it together and without the confidence to do it. Those are my added two qualities: self-efficacy and desire. Both of these will wax and wane, and there will be times (thinking of that third dimension) where others are involved and where circumstances influence us, but it is in the application that we begin to piece together (yep, still going on that puzzle analogy) an understanding.        Image CC BY-NC by Jean Yves Remy

From a teacher’s perspective there will be times when you could certainly do it faster and better than the students, but that is precisely why you don’t. By simply being shown a powerpoint of a puzzle, seeing a video of it built, but not having done it – without the manifestation of the student’s belief and desire to learn, without their agency, you could argue that little learning takes place.

Final thoughts:

During this course (#el30) Stephen has been patient with his co-learners and all of our stumbles and explorations of the topics. How much easier it would have been to give us a textbook? But also how boring. I would never have made it past page 2. Learning is worth the time. It’s worth the effort to invest in each other.