Monday, November 13, 2023

Agency by Design - Derek Wenmouth

 This book -  Agency by Design: An Educator's Playbook -by Derek Wenmouth with Marsha Jones, George Edwards and Annette Thompson, provides strategies to help provide learners with the skills to be self-directed learners. The book is free to download.

The book is pitched at the school context but many of the ideas and resources, are relevant across all education sectors. The book begins with a 'how to use the playbook' section, including an overview of the framework proposed to help activate agency in learners.

Then it moves to the implementation section which has 7 suggested conditions that can be created by teachers to increase learner agency and the characteristics (rubrics) observed in students which signal their learners' agency.

In a world of rapid and continual change, schools need to prepare their students, for a VUCA world. Learning the fundamentals are important (i.e. reading, writing and arithmetic). Beyond that, the real role of education, is to provide students with the confidence in their own abilities and to encourage and support the attitudinal qualities -resilience/ grit, curiosity, multimodal communication, flexibility and agility in learning and continual learning etc.

In all, a good summary, with practical examples for teachers, of not only encouraging, but building self-efficacy, leadership and continual adaptability in learners. 


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